Mary Wetherall (1826-????), James Harvey (1802-1884) and Moses Leveridge (1816-1893).
My 3rd great-grandmother.
I suspect my 3rd great-grandmother Mary Wetherall was baptised on 10 August 1826 at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, to Rebecca Frances Wetherill, who was unmarried. This child was named Marianne Preston Wetherall with the notation BB, meaning base born, but I’ve found no further mention of anyone with this full name. Despite records in later years suggesting Mary was born in or around 1827-29, I believe Marianne’s name was simplified over time. Her middle name of Preston may be a clue to the identity of her father.
The 1841 and 51 censuses show Mary was living with mum Rebecca and her brothers Robert (born 1831), James (1833) and John (1837). Remarkably for the time, all of them were born illegitimately. The 1851 census records Mary with her children Rebecca (born 1845) and Benjamin Thomas Wetherall – my 2nd great-grandfather – who was born on 1 May 1849. They were described as Rebecca Snr’s children but that was an error on the part of the enumerator and instead they were born illegitimately to Mary. It wasn’t unusual for children to be born out of wedlock at the time but it was much rarer for a woman to repeatedly have illegitimate offspring, defy the conventions and endure the difficulty of bringing up a family without a male breadwinner. This suggests that both Mary and her mother Rebecca were women of a certain character – headstrong, defiant and rebellious perhaps.
The 1861 Census recorded an M A Wetherall from Norfolk, aged 30 and working as a cook in Norwood, South London, but I suspect that my ancestor is the woman who’d set up home in Denes Buildings, Great Yarmouth, with ship chandler’s labourer James Harvey, who’d been born in Harwich, Essex, on 18 April 1802. They’d married at St Andrew’s Church, Gorleston, Suffolk, on 2 January 1860, when James was describing himself as a sailor. What’s curious is that Mary, who gae her full name as Mary Anne Preston Wetherall, gave the name of her father for the record – Isaac Preston Germain. Even stranger is her description of him as a ‘Gentleman’, in other words a man of some wealth with no real need to work. Was this the truth or a fantasy? Interestingly this isn’t a case of Mary trying to cover up her illegitimate past or she would’ve used her surname, but I’ve found no record of an Isaac Preston Germain. There were men around at the time with similar names, although not local, and it’s possible that Mary’s mother met a visitor to the town…
The 1861 Census showed Mary and James living with Rebecca and Benjamin, both listed as their children but still with their Wetherall surname. James was about 23 years older than Mary – although their age differences shifted about in subsequent years and she sometimes went by the name Mary Ann. Benjamin was still living with the couple at the time of the 1871 Census, just a few months before his marriage, along with a lodger.
In 1881 James and Mary were residing at the Fishermen’s Hospital in Church Plain, Great Yarmouth. This was built in 1702 by The Corporation of Great Yarmouth as an almshouse for ‘decayed fisherman’. The accommodation was for 20 men and their wives but to qualify for residence they had to be aged over 60 and no longer able to provide for themselves. The age difference between them had fallen to 15 years by this point and Mary was working as a charwoman. James was described as a former fisherman. He died in 1884 and was buried on 9 April 1884 in Great Yarmouth, said to be aged 81.
I’ve not found an entry for Mary in the 1891 census, or a confirmed death date that fits her either by age or background. However, a Mary Ann P Harvey married widower Moses Leveridge / Leveredge in Great Yarmouth in 1885 and matches for date and place of birth in the census records. A farmer born in around 1815, Moses died in 1893. Mary Ann Leveridge was living in Great Yarmouth in 1901 and died in 1905, being buried on 12 December.
Mary had at least two children:
- Rebecca Wetherall (1845-1873), my 2nd great-grand aunt. Rebecca married in Manchester and died young of cancer.
- Benjamin Thomas Wetherall (1849-1931), my 2nd great-grandfather. He was a shipwright and worked on a famous vessel.
Sources: BMDs and census info at Ancestry.co.uk and Findmypast.co.uk. Birth records at gro.gov.uk. Records at Norfolk Family History Society.