Whatmore Family History

About three miles north of Ludlow is the village of Bitterley where a branch of the Whatmore family was established by William Watmore and his wife Catherine (nee Butcher). This William is believed to be the one born at Detton Mill in 1736. He married Catherine Butcher by licence at Hopton Wafers in 1761. They seem to have moved to Bitterley to live, then spent some time at Stottesdon before returning to Bitterley where Catherine was buried aged 76 in 1809 and William in 1819 aged 83.

William and Catherine had four known children – two baptised at Bitterley: William Junior in 1764 and Sarah in 1769, and two baptised at Stottesdon: Thomas in 1771 and John in 1776. Two of the three brothers, Thomas and John, moved to Ludlow. Their sister Sarah is probably the Sarah Watmore who was a witness at the marriage of William Haines and Ann Bromley at Bitterley in 1786. What became of Sarah later on is not known.  It was the elder brother William who continued the Watmore line at Bitterley.

Bitterley church   Painting by John Homes Smith      Copyright: Shropshire Archives and reproduced here by their kind permission

William Watmore (Junior) married Mary Inton at Ludlow in 1786. They had four known children – Thomas baptised in 1787 at Bitterley about whom nothing further is known, James baptised in 1790 at Stottesdon (his father being described as a pauper) who must have died before 1794, Sarah baptised in 1791 at Bitterley who may have married Edward Prosser in Ludlow in 1813, and James baptised on 30 March  1794 at Bitterley – who remained in the area.

James Whatmore (he has an aitch in the censuses) married Ann Prince of Bitterley on 13 February 1821 at Bitterley church. Ann appears to have had an illegitimate son, Charles, who was baptised at Bitterley in 1815. James, who was a coal miner, was living with his family at Snitton in the 1841 and 1851 censuses, but by 1861 the family had moved to nearby Caynham.

The Bitterley parish registers record the baptism of five children to James and Ann, but the IGI gives details of two further children who were baptised at the Old Street Primitive Methodist Chapel in Ludlow – Martha in 1832 and Jane in 1837 and these children are with James and Ann in the 1841 census. These baptisms are, however, not in the printed transcript of the Chapel register. Between these two baptisms is that of Marianne at Bitterley in 1835. Why she was not also baptised at the Methodist Chapel is a mystery – but perhaps she was not expected to live and Bitterley church was close at hand.

It is not known what happened to Sarah, the eldest child of James and Ann, who was baptised in 1821. She was not at home at the time of the 1841 census.

The next child of James and Ann was Ancelena, baptised in 1823. She married John Malpas, a coal miner of Bitterley, in 1842 at Bitterley church. John and Ancelena continued to live at Bitterley where the censuses indicate they had eleven children including twins born in 1870 – Mary and Martha.

John Malpas died between 1869 and 1871 and in 1874 Ancelena remarried to John Harding who was blacksmith at Farden. He died before the 1901 census as at that time Ancelena is shown as a widow aged 78, living at Farden.

Thomas Whatmore, the eldest son of James and Ann, was baptised on 11 November 1827 at Bitterley. He married a Jane (probably Jane Clarke) and worked as a coal miner at Bitterley. They had three sons, John, William and Thomas, and a daughter Ann, but what happened to

them in later life is not known. Thomas Senior died when he was in his

thirties and his wife Jane remarried in 1871 to Benjamin Martin, a Bitterley farmer who was a widower with two children.  Benjamin and Jane had two children both born at Bitterley.

William Whatmore, the other son of James and Ann, was born about 1840 at Clee Hill (census information). He married a Mary Ann from Pink House in Staffordshire, They lived at nearby Knowbury and at Bitterley, William working as a brickmaker. They had one known child –

 Sarah Ann Whatmore who was born about 1872. In 1901 Sarah Ann was working as a cook at Prescot House, Upper Swinford, unmarried , aged 29. William died before the 1891 census and his widow supported herself by working as a seamstress.

 Churchyard cross at Bitterley       Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

 Of the remaining children of James and Ann, Amelia, baptised in 1830, was buried one year later at Bitterley. Martha, baptised at Ludlow in 1832 married Benjamin Edwards in 1850 and lived at Caynham, near Bitterley. She died in 1889. The censuses record seven children born to Martha and Benjamin, five sons and two daughters. Marianne, baptised in 1835 had an illegitimate daughter, Charlotte Whatmore, born about 1859 at Bitterley. Charlotte latter moved to Rochdale and there in 1884 she married David Tomlinson, a chimney sweep from Macclesfield.  In 1901 they were at Rochdale and had two sons and two daughters. Charlotte’s mother Marianne married Benjamin Matthews from Bitterley. Marianne and Benjamin lived at Caynham where they had five sons.

Jane, the youngest daughter of James and Ann Whatmore was working as a dairy maid at Brimfield, Herefordshire in 1861, but what happened to her later on is not known.