Rebecca Wetherall (1845-1878) and James Peers (1847-1880).
My 2nd great-grand aunt.
Rebecca was born to Mary Wetherall on 29 January 1845 at the Great Yarmouth Workhouse but the birth certificate was blank where the father’s name should be, meaning she was illegitimate.
The informant for the record was James Kemp, master of the workhouse. But why Mary had her child there is a mystery. It’s possible the family was in the workhouse anyway, in need of support from the parish to survive, or Mary may have needed specific medical attention not available at home. It’s also the case that many unmarried women who were expecting a child were thrown out of their homes by their parents. But as Rebecca’s own mother was herself illegitimate, this seems an unlikely explanation.
Rebecca was baptised on 7 February 1845 in Great Yarmouth, although the record gave her surname as Witherale. She grew up with her mother, brother, aunts, uncles and grandmother and in 1851 several of them were living in Jays Buildings. By 1861 they were at Denes Buildings in Great Yarmouth. Rebecca was working as a beatster, someone who mended fishing nets.
It’s likely through lack of alternatives that she was the Rebecca Wetherall who had an illegitimate child, Albert Edward, on 1 May 1868. He was baptised on 23 January 1869 and buried just a few days later on the 28th.
Rebecca is missing from the 1871 Census but I suspect she was the Rebecca Wetherall who married widower James Peers in Manchester Cathedral in Lancashire on 15 November 1873. He was the son of labourer and gardener James Peers and his wife Martha, born at Mobberley in Cheshire on 15 August 1847. He was described on the marriage record as a provisions dealer of Cromwell Street, Salford, Lancashire. Rebecca gave James Weatherall, a traveller, as her father, which doubtless referred to her step-father but with a ‘respectable’ surname substituted.
The 1876 Slater’s directory listed a James Peers, shopkeeper of Cromwell Terrace, South Cross Lane, Manchester, and it’s likely this was Rebecca’s husband. The couple had a son, James Jnr, on 20 January 1875 and their address at the time was given as 6 Cromwell Terrace, with James Snr’s occupation given as a milk dealer.
Rebecca died just a few years later, on 18 September 1878, but back in Great Yarmouth. The death certificate showed that she’d been suffering with cancer of the uterus for at least a year and was at 41 Admiralty Road at the time. The death was reported by Elizabeth Abel of 54 Ordnance Road, who was her sister-in-law’s mother. Whether Rebecca had returned to her home town to die or took a sudden turn for the worse on a visit is impossible to know.
There is a mystery as a result of the death certificate as this listed Rebecca’s husband James Peers as a tailor. A James Peers, tailor, died in Mobberley, Cheshire in 1880 of heart disease and I’m sure this is our man as he was the right age of 33. He was buried in the village of his birth on 27 October.
Rebecca and James’s only child was:
- James Peers (1875-1946). Born in Salford, Lancashire, James served in the Cheshire Regiment of the British Army from 1890 to 1911 and rose to be a Colour Sergeant. He completed two tours of duty in India from 1892-98 and 1899-1904. He re-enlisted to serve in the Labour Corps in the First World War. He married Elizabeth Gregory in 1905, had children and also worked at a rubber works in Manchester and as a storekeeper. They lived in Macclesfield, Cheshire, for many years and he died there in 1946. Elizabeth remarried and died in 1958.
Sources: Birth, marriage, death and burial records including civil registrations from the General Register Office, census returns, military and other records at Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk and Norfolk Family History Society.
Rebecca Wetherall birth and death certificates and James Peers Snr death certificate from the General Register Office.