Mary Wetherall (1826-1905), James Harvey (1802-1884) and Moses Leveridge (1816-1893).
My 3rd great-grandmother.
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. In later records she was referred to as Mary. Her middle name of Preston may have been a clue to the identity of her father.
The 1841 and 1851 Census returns showed Mary was living with mum Rebecca and her brothers. Remarkably for the time, all of them were born illegitimately.
The 1851 census recorded 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 – 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 was the woman who’d set up home in Denes Buildings, Great Yarmouth, with ship chandler’s labourer James Harvey. He had been born in Harwich, Essex, on 18 April 1802 to parents James and Ann Harvey. Mary married him at St Andrew’s Church, Gorleston, on 2 January 1860, when James was describing himself as a sailor. What’s curious is that Mary, who gave 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 wasn’t a case of Mary trying to cover up her illegitimate past as her surname didn’t match his, but I’ve found no record of an Isaac Preston Germain in the area. There were men around at the time with similar names, although not local, and it’s always possible that Mary’s mother met a visitor to the town…
The 1861 Census showed Mary and James living with Rebecca and Benjamin, 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. 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, or cleaner. James was described as a former fisherman. He died in 1884 and was buried on 9 April 1884 in Great Yarmouth.
I’ve not found an entry for a Mary Harvey 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 this woman is a match for date and place of birth in the census records. Moses was born on 14 January 1816 in Worthing, Norfolk, and worked as a farmer for many years. They were living together in Admiralty Road at the 1891 Census but Moses died in 1893 and was buried in Great Yarmouth on 27 September. Mary Ann died in 1905 and was buried in the town 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: Birth, marriage, death and burial records including civil registrations from the General Register Office, census returns and other records at Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk and Norfolk Family History Society.