Thomas Wetherill (1712-1755) and Sarah Sley (1720-1800).
My 7th great-grandparents.
I speculated in the story of James Wetherill and Mary Proctor – my 6th great-grandparents – that his parents were Thomas Wetherill and Sarah Sley despite the lack of a baptism record. So there’s a degree of assumption going on when it comes to my 6th great-grandparents. However, I’m confident I’ve got the right people based on the available records, the lack of alternatives and evidence in wills.
Where Thomas, my 7th great-grandfather, came from is not 100% certain but the only candidate based on currently available records is a Thomas Wetherill born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in 1712. He was baptised on 12 December that year at St Nicholas’s Church to parents Thomas Witherell and Mary Corpe. However, this would make Thomas Jnr around 33 years of age at the time of his marriage, which some would consider rather late for the period.
Thomas and Sarah married on 22 May 1746 in St Nicholas’s Church, Bradwell, Norfolk. Both were said to be from nearby Great Yarmouth on the marriage register and Thomas was described as ‘the younger’, confirming that his father was another Thomas.
Sarah came from a reasonably comfortable background judging by the will of her mariner father James Sley, drawn up in 1758 and published after his death in 1765. This mentions his daughter Sarah Wetherill as well as grandchildren James and William and lists, over many pages, his properties in and around Great Yarmouth. Sarah was born to him and his wife Susannah Barnes in 1720 and baptised at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth on 31 January that year.
It’s unclear what Thomas Wetherill did for a living but various records at Norfolk Archives in a collection from 1755-59 point to him being the Water Bailiff and Collector of Haven and Pier Duties in Great Yarmouth in his later years, if not earlier. There’s an undated petition (pictured here) from him to the Mayor and borough assembly to continue in the role for another year, which was granted by the authorities on condition of him giving security and acting under the supervision of an Abel Clifton. Another petition from Dover Colby and Abel Clifton was later presented requested recompense for acting jointly as water bailiffs, which they’d done during the sickness of Thomas Wetherill from 17 May 1754 to his death in 1755. It was ordered that £60 be paid to Clifton and £80 to Colby. A subsequent petition of October 1755 from Sarah, widow of Thomas Wetherill, late water bailiff, requested payment of the salary he would have received had he lived till the previous Michaelmas. This noted that she had been left with two children “in a very necessitous condition”. This too was granted.
The Water Bailiff played a significant role in the local community, collecting fees and in the years before Thomas’s appointment carrying the town’s sword before the Mayor in civic processions.
Norfolk Family History Society has the record of Thomas’s death in 1755 and burial in Great Yarmouth on 4 July.
Sarah died in 1800 and was buried at the parish church on 18 September, described as a widow aged 82.
Thomas and Sarah had at least four children:
- James Wetherill (1747-1747), my 6th great-grand uncle. He was baptised on 27 February that year at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and buried there on 29 October.
- Thomas Wetherill (1748-1748), my 6th great-grand uncle. Baptised on 10 March 1748 at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, he was buried there just a few days later on 1 April.
- William Wetherill (1749-????), my 6th great-grand uncle. William was baptised on 12 February 1749 St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and was mentioned in his grandfather James Sley’s will of 1758, proved in 1765. It’s likely that he was the boy apprenticed to water bailiff Abel Clifton in Great Yarmouth in 1763, with a premium listed as £15. I’ve not found other records for him that clearly match. I doubt he was the man who married an Elizabeth Shorter in the town in 1773 as he was a widower. Was he the man who died in the town in 1882?
- James Wetherill (1750?-1801), my 6th great-grandfather. As I mention above, his birth year is a guesstimate and no baptism record survives. However, a James Wetherill is mentioned in grandfather James Sley’s will of 1758.
Sources: Birth, marriage, death and burial records and other records at Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk and Norfolk Family History Society. Norfolk Archives Sley 1765 will: NCC will register Rolfe 229. Water bailiff details from Norfolk Archives: Y/C 19/33 Assembly file. 1755-9. Society of Genealogists apprenticeship records: Britain Country Apprentices 1710-1808 vol 39.
Dated August 1491, this is documentation regarding the water bailiff role from the Great Yarmouth borough but how much had changed by the Wetherills’ time is not clear: “The chamberlains, in consultation with the bailiffs, shall choose as water-bailiff someone considered honest, diligent and profitable to the town; he shall be sworn before the bailiffs and chamberlains that he shall duly and honestly perform his duties in all matters that the chamberlains shall assigned him to undertake to the profit of the town. The water-bailiff shall in no regard collect customs from merchandize of denizens or outsiders coming [by ship or boat] into the haven or streams, but shall bring the owner or master of [the vessel] to the assigned house to pay custom to the chamberlains. Accurate lists of all such customs are to be brought into the court each week, to be enrolled according to ancient custom. The wages of a water-bailiff who performs his duties well and diligently shall henceforth be 33s.4d annually, plus a gown [i.e. livery] to be paid for by the chamberlains.”