Whatmore Family History

I have always had the greatest respect for the Salvation Army and the sterling work which they do for the homeless and destitute. It was thus with great pleasure that I discovered that Hugh Whatmore and his family had been distinguished members of the Salvation Army.

Commander Hugh Whatmore

Copyright : SA Collectables reproduced by kind permission of David Miller,

SA Collectables  www.sacollectables.com

All others materials in this post are the copyright of the Salvation Army International Heritage Centre, and are reproduced here by the kind permission of the Centre.

 I am most grateful to the staff of the Centre for undertaking research on my behalf and for  allowing me to use the information which they provided for this account of Commander Whatmore.

I came across Hugh Whatmore whilst investigating the births of Whatmores in Sheffield, as shown in the GRO. A Herbert Whatmore was shown as having been born in the September Quarter 1894 and I sent for the birth certificate thinking that he was one of my own family. The certificate showed that his father was Hugh Edward Whtamore, Salvation Army Officer, and his mother was Mary Whatmore formerly Woodward. Who were Hugh and Mary and what were they doing in Sheffield?

 Whilst I was able to find Hugh Whatmore’s parents and grandparents without much trouble, I was unsure of his earlier ancestry. Luckly, when I mentioned this to Geoffrey Whatmore, the Family Historian and told him that Hugh’s grandfather had been a Joseph Dawkins Whatmore - he at once said that this must be the Wiltshire branch of the family  and so it was.

 The great grandparents of Hugh Edward Whatmore were an Edward and Elizabeth Lucy Whatmore who baptised their son Joseph Dawkins Whatmore in 1812 at Greenock, near Glasgow in Scotland. Edward  Whatmore was baptised in 1756, the son of Edward Whatmore of Marshwood House, Wilton who married Elizabeth Dawkins. (Joseph Dawkins Whatmore married a Charlotte and worked as a boot maker in London. Their son John Lauda Whatmore, (Hugh Edward Whatmore’s father), was born about 1836 in Poplar. Although initially John Lauda Whatmore was a shoe maker, like his father, by 1871 be had been appointed as a Police Constable, a post he held until he retired. He married an Elizabeth and their first child, Hugh Edward, was born in the June Quarter of 1860, at Knightsbridge, London.  

At the age of 17, Hugh was attracted to a meeting at the first HQ of the Salvation Army at the Whitechapel Hall. Shortly afterwards he committed himself to what was then known as the ‘Christian Mission’. It is perhaps little generally known how much opposition from the authorities there was to the Salvation Army in its early days, and although the movement quickly earned the respect and affection of ordinary working people, as a member of a band of five young men who undertook evangelical work in the East End of London, Hugh and his companions must at times have been in real danger of personal violence as they walked through some of the notorious rookeries. A quiet and kindly man of great personal humility, Hugh Whatmore, as a young man, would not have thought himself capable of the important role he was later to play as a Travelling Commissioner. Writing much later about his early life, Hugh said: 

….. I am amazed that I was attached to the Movement, and that I had either heart or courage enough to become an Officer. Temperamentally I was anything but a promising Salvationist. Nervous to an almost unnatural degree, I shrank from publicity and anything in the nature of public work.

(from ‘Fighting in Many Lands’) 

At the age of 20, in 1881, he was working as a night watchman and living at Great Turnstile in the parish of St Giles.  It was through a characteristic act of thoughtfulness and courtesy that Hugh Whatmore met his future wife Mary Woodward. Hugh was a member of the first Brass Band formed at Whitechapel and one Sunday   evening the horse of a passing carriage was startled by the music of an outdoor meeting. Hugh grabbed the bridle to prevent an accident. Mary, who was a passenger in the carriage, was impressed by this kindness and began to attend the meetings in Whitechapel. Hugh and Mary were married on 14 August 1886 in Boston, Massachusetts, where they had been posted. 

Hugh’s initial posting was to Bristol in March 1882, but four months later he was posted as a Captain to Cheltenham, where with great faith he took out a seven year lease on a disused circus building at a rent of £120 a year. His faith was justified: sufficient funds were received to pay the rent and the 1,200 seats of the converted building were always filled twice each Sunday. 

In 1894, Hugh and Mary were living in Sheffield and Hugh was serving as a Salvation Army Oficer attached to the North Midland province. Their son Herbert Edward Whatmore was born at Sheffield on 23 July 1894. By the spring of the following year, the family were in the area of Newcastle on Tyne, where sadly, their son Herbert died.

The career of Hugh and Mary Whatmore took them to many other places besides America – Sweden, Italy, South Africa, Holland , Korea, Japan, Java, Sumatra, Ceylon, India and Australia as well as postings to many parts of England. Hugh was promoted to Commissioner of the Salvation Army in October 1910.

 A cruel blow was dealt to Hugh and Mary Whatmore and the whole Salvation Army movement when at 2.00 a.m. on the morning of Friday 29 May 1914, the Canadian Pacific liner ‘ Empress of Ireland’ was rammed by the Norwegian collier ‘Storstad’ in thick fog in the Gulf of St Lawrence. The ‘Empress’ sank within 15 minutes taking with it over a thousand of its passengers.

 On board had been 200 Salvationists including women and children, on their way to an International Congress in London. Among the 167 Salvationists who were lost was Captain Giovanni Guido Whatmore, the son of Hugh and Mary. Guido, who had been born in Italy on 3 October 1891, had just finished training college. 

In addition to their two sons, Hugh and Mary Whatmore had four daughters. The eldest of these was Rosamond who was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1888 and who also had a distinguished career in the Salvation Army, being promoted to Brigadier in 1938. Rosamond, who never married, was ‘promoted to glory’ on 24 May 1971.

Their other daughters were Mildred Ruth Whatmore, born in 1890 in Chicago, whose married name was Giles, and who was living at Stamford Hill, London in 1954, Dorothy Whatmore, born in 1897 who married a G. Wellman and lived at Cambridge, and Mary M Whatmore, born in Clapton, London in 1901, who served in Australia for many years in the Salvation Army  as Mrs Senior-Major Jessop.  

Hugh and Mary Whatmore seem to have had a family home at Clapton in London and it was probably there that Hugh was  ‘promoted to glory’ on 29 March 1939.

After Hugh’s death, his widow probably lived with her daughter Mildred Ruth Giles at Stamford Hill, London as it was at the Giles’ home that Mary Whatmore was ‘promoted to glory’ on 24 February 1954. Hugh and Mary are buried in the City of London Cemetery at Little Ilford. 

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