Alfred Wheatland (1891-1976).
My great-grand uncle.
Alfred Wheatland was baptised on 26 July 1891 at St Peter’s Church in Croydon to parents John Wheatland and Mary Coughlan. His birthdate is uncertain because he changed it over time, from 6 June 1889 with the Royal Navy to 6 June 1891.
He grew up in Croydon but at the time of the 1901 census was living with his parents in Sisland, Norfolk, where his father was working. His Royal Navy record states that he was a stable boy before joining and he began serving in 1905 as a Boy 2nd Class, over time rising in the ranks to be a Leading Seaman. As an adult he stood about 5ft 7ins tall, and had dark brown hair and blue eyes.
His service meant he narrowly escaped going to jail for being drunk and assaulting a PC Corbin near the Swan and Sugarloaf pub in South Croydon, according to the Croydon Times of 14 March 1914. He punched the policeman three times in the face and later apologised to him, saying he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. The court chairman told him to return to his ship and even sent him his best wishes!
For much of the First World War Alfred served on the depot ship HMS Bonaventure so appears to have been on board at the same time as his brother Arthur. From 1917 he served on a number of other vessels including the Dolphin and Maidstone. Alfred completed his naval service in 1919 but then joined the Merchant Navy, undertaking voyages that took him to the four corners of the world. However, he was married by this point in his life, his bride being Lucy Maria Varney. They wed at St Nicholas’s Church in Harwich, Essex, on 4 July 1917 but she had been born in Croydon in 1894.
A Lucy Maria Wheatland is found subsequently in some 1920s electoral rolls in the parish of Green Norton, Northamptonshire, but disappears until a 1958 record showing someone I assume is her marrying a Herbert Upton in Croydon in 1958. The death of a Lucy Maria Upton was registered in Chesterfield in 1976. If Alfred and Lucy divorced, I’ve found no records to prove it and many documents were destroyed.
Alfred, meanwhile, was travelling the world. There are records of him arriving on board the P&O vessel Orvieto into Sydney, Australia, in April 1920, serving in the capacity of quartermaster. In November 1921 he was back in Sydney as an able seaman on board the Orient Line’s Ormuz, but this time he’s listed alongside a W Wheatland of Croydon. I suspect this is his brother William. In May of 1924 he arrived in New York from London as quartermaster on the Red Star Line ship Minnewaska, then in September was serving as an able seaman on the Atlantic Transport Line’s Minnetonka when it too arrived in New York. In October 1927 he was engaged as an assistant steward on the run from Havana in Cuba to New York on board the Ulua. He did the same run in the same capacity on the Calamares, arriving in New York in January 1928.
He next crops up in 1942 in the Second World War draft registration cards in New York City, living at 370 142nd Street in the Bronx. At this point in his life he was unemployed but a document from 1944 describes him as a waiter, suggests he had been in the US since 1928 and that he was intending to live there permanently. It also references his son Donald, who by this time was in the British army. In 1953 a document notes that Alfred was living in Brooklyn. Alfred died in August 1976, his last address given as 11691, Far Rockaway, Queens, New York.
Alfred and Lucy had two sons:
- Donald Alfred Wheatland, born in Croydon in 1919 and who died in Derbyshire in 2001.
- Raymond Frederick Wheatland, born Croydon 1924, who died in Berkshire in 2013. He married Kathleen Nellie Evans in 1942. She died in 1993.
Sources: BMDs, census and other records at Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk, Familysearch.org. British Newspaper Archive (titles in text). Naval records at National Archives. New York and Australian Passenger Lists.