Over the centuries it is inevitable that some members of the Whatmore family will have died violent deaths, but very few of these are documented. In the case, however, of the murder of  William Whatmore in 1858 at Barnby in the  Willows in Nottinghamshire, there is a lengthy item in the issue of ‘The Times’ for 23 November 1858. A six page pamphlet about the murder was also published, but Geoffrey Whatmore tells us that, regrettably, the only known copy which was in the British Library, was destroyed in the Blitz.

William Whatmore was born in 1828 at Barnby, Nottinghamshire, the son of William Whatmore and his wife  Mary (nee Copley).  The Copley name was given to one of his brothers - Thomas Copley Whatmore (1830 - 1923) and has continued to be   used as a first name in that line of the  family down to the present day. The ancestors of the William who was murdered can be traced back to a Robert Watmore who married a Mary Simpson in 1765 but ultimately this line probably goes back to the early Watmore family at Tuxford, Nottinghamshire.

 In the 1841 census, the William Whatmore who was murdered was at home with his parents at Barnby. At the time of the 1851 census he was living at Nevenby, Lincolnshire and working as a family servant.  In 1852 he married Ann Bean in the Lincoln Registration District. They had four known  children - John Harrison Whatmore 1853,   Thomas Copley Whatmore 1854, William Bean Whatmore  1855, and Sarah Ann Whatmore 1857.   After her husband was murdered in 1858, Ann went back to live with her parents and her children moved in with their Whatmore grandparents.  In 1862 Ann give birth to an illegitimate daughter - Lucy Emma Whatmore. Ann later remarried to a Charles Brown by whom she had further children.

The story of William’s murder according to the report in ‘The Times’ is as follows:

William Whatmore had for several years been a gamekeeper in the employ of Henry Gilbert of the Manor House Farm near Barnby. The farm of 900 acres adjoined 30 acres which belonged to a farmer called Thomas Brown Birkett. Mr Birkett often  went shooting and trapping game on his own lands, but during November 1858 he found that several of his traps had been sprung and thrown into a nearby wood. At first it was thought that two gamekeepers in the employ of a Mr Thorpe had been responsible and these men were charged with the offence, but were acquitted. Thomas Birkett now suspected that William Whatmore had been responsible, and made threats against him.

One night, a few days later, William together with a labourer called Benjamin Vessey was out at night on his employer’s land and coming up to the boundary with the lands of Thomas Birkett they met Thomas who was out shooting.  Thomas at once accused William Whatmore of having taken his traps, but William denied this. By now William was leaning on the gate separating the two farms and was still denying having taken the traps, when Thomas Birkett raised his double barrelled shotgun to his shoulder, and shot William Whatmore. Birkett claimed to Vessey that William was about to strike him, but Vessey denied this. Vessey then ran to fetch a doctor, but in vain, William was dead.

When Thomas Birkett was arrested, he claimed that William’s death had been an accident, but at the trial witnesses asserted that they had heard threats made by Birkett against William, in the days before the shooting.  Thomas had said that he would ‘do’ for Whatmore the first chance he had.

A verdict of wilful murder was returned against Thomas Birkett who had not submitted any defence and had only made one remark during the trial,  ‘Poor fellow I had rather have given 20l than it had happened’.

From Geoffrey Whatmore’s research we learn that Thomas Birkett was sentenced to death but that this was later commuted to transportation for life and that he lost his land and family.

I am most grateful to members  of the Copley-Whatmore family for providing me with information about William Whatmore’s marriage and his descendants.