John Wheatland (1876-1952), my great-grand uncle.
Born on 6 March 1876 and baptised on 14 May that year at St Peter’s Church in Croydon, Surrey, John served in the Royal Navy and the Coastguard like so many of his ancestors and descendants. His parents were John Wheatland and Mary Coughlan.
John Jnr grew up in Selsdon Road, Croydon, and in 1884 was registered at Archbishop Tenison’s School. He remained there for less than five years, when a note on his record states that he left to start work as a bookmaker. John’s naval service began in 1891 when he was aged just 15, and he served on numerous ships and at shore bases, ultimately as an Able Seaman and Seaman Gunner. During his career he was on HMS Alexandra when it was the flagship of the Admiral Superintendent of Naval Reserves at Portsmouth (1898-99) and on the battleship HMS Canopus while it was part of the Mediterranean Fleet up until 1903. In March 1905 he began working for the Coastguard on the south coast of England, and from April that year was listed as one of the boatmen in Blatchington, near Brighton in Sussex. With a notation that he’d provided good service, he moved on to Stokes Bay in 1910 and earned himself a good conduct medal.
But the approach of war in 1914 saw him return to active Royal Navy service and for much of The Great War John served on the dreadnought battleship HMS Agincourt as part of the Grand Fleet in the North Sea. Most of her time was spent on patrols and exercises, although she did participate in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. This was the only major battle between the British and German navies of the entire war and it resulted in big losses for the Royal Navy. However, the British claimed that the battle resulted in the German navy being contained at home. John’s naval career ended in 1919 and he received the 1914-15 Star, the Victory Medal and British War Medal for his efforts. He may have then returned to Coastguard service.
John married widow Fanny Kerrell (nee Aldridge) at Portsea parish church in Hampshire on 19 August 1905 while he was serving in the Coastguard. They had several children but their life together was short for Fanny was admitted to the Hampshire asylum in August 1910. Then, on 24 November that year, she was transferred to the Croydon Mental Hospital at Warlingham, Surrey, where she was diagnosed as suffering from ‘mania’. Her records from the time describe her as morose, prone to making wild and incoherent statements and of being unclean. John told doctors that his wife had been behaving strangely for some months, stripping his garden of vegetables one day and rising in the middle of the night on another to dress her youngest children. The record, held by the Bethlem Hospital, shows that others in her family had suffered from mental illness.
Over the next few years the records show that she suffered delusions, was violent, dangerous and destructive, resistant to nursing and uncommunicative. The record runs until 1914 and it’s a depressing read from beginning to end. John and those of his children old enough to understand must’ve found the experience traumatic.
While Fanny was being treated, the 1911 census showed John living with just his son John Jnr and step-son Hubert Kerrell at the Coastguard Station at Alverstoke in Hampshire. His other children were living with other Wheatland family members, no doubt so that John could continue to work. Fanny probably remained at the Croydon Mental Hospital, which was renamed Warlingham Park, for the rest of her life and she was certainly listed as a resident in the 1939 Register. The death of a Fanny Wheatland was recorded on 15 September 1957. But then the mystery begins for it looks like John married again, his bride Edith Emily Brotherwood. However, this event was registered in in 1926 in Croydon. The 1939 Register shows the couple were living at 12 St Andrew’s Road, Burgess Hill, Sussex, his occupation given as a builder’s labourer. His listed birth date of 6 March 1876 is key to suggesting these were one and the same John Wheatland. So the question is whether John was divorced or whether he married bigamously? An alternative is I’ve muddled different people. I’ve found no record of a divorce at the National Archives, although there is a possibility it hasn’t survived.
John died in Burgess Hill in December 1952. His funeral was on 1 January 1953. Edith in 1968.
John and Fanny’s children were:
- John Beaumont Wheatland (1906-1992). Born in Bishopstone in Sussex, John was sentenced to three months hard labour for house-breaking with another man in a hearing at Croydon court in 1926. He married Margaret Iris Bromell in Croydon, Surrey, in 1939 shortly after her application for divorce was granted on the ground’s of her then husband’s adultery. Around this time they were living in Penge and he was working on the railways. She died in 1977, he followed in January 1992.
- Doris Gertrude Wheatland (1907-1994). Born in Bishopstone in Sussex, Doris was a cook and servant in Woking, Surrey, at the time of the 1939 Register. She married Ronald Charman in 1950 and was living in Hayling Island, Sussex, at the time of her death.
- Iris Lily Kate Wheatland (1909-1985). Born in Sussex but baptised in Croydon, Surrey, she was living with foster parents in 1911. She too was working as a servant in Woking, Surrey, in 1939 but two years after she married Frank E Parmenter. She died near Chelmsford in Essex in 1985.
- Lionel Arthur Wheatland (1910-86). Born in Sussex but baptised in Croydon, Surrey, he was living with foster parents in 1911 but went into the army as an adult. He left before the war and became a decorator but rejoined and was part of the liberation of France. He married Mary Jane Hewett in 1949 and lived in Croydon for some years. They both died in Portsmouth, Mary in 1984.
Sources: Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk, Familysearch.org. UK, Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, 1846-1921. 24 March 1945 Croydon Times. UK, Royal Navy Registers of Seamen’s Services, 1900-1928. UK, Royal Navy Registers of Seamen’s Services, 1900-1928. Bethlem Hospital records.