9/52 Female: Annie Wibberley
9/52 Female: Annie Wibberley
I have chosen to write my 9th post about Auntie Annie Wibberley. The prompt is ‘female’. I have chosen Annie because I haven’t written anything so far about the Wibberley family, my grandfather’s family, and she was the only girl in her family.
I first developed an interest in Annie when I was transcribing my great grandmother’s letters. She, my great grandmother Maria Hunt, was married to Brian Wibberley, Annie’s brother. In a letter to her daughter-in-law she wrote referring to her son, Will, who was in England during the first world war:
‘…for by last mail we received word that his Uncle George, (husband of Mr Wibberley’s only sister) had passed away very suddenly. The mail previous we had had a letter from his Aunt Annie ……saying how they were all looking forward to his next visit in March. This was written on the 11th of Jan and on the 14th this great sorrow came suddenly upon her. He went out apparently quite well and returned home sooner than expected feeling ill and died a few minutes later. Angina Pectoris the doctor said was the cause. Will evidently knew nothing when he wrote last.’
I immediately looked up Auntie Annie on Ancestry and found I had incorrectly listed someone else as her husband. I changed it to George and tried to find more details about him, beyond his death date of 14th of January,1917. Nothing came of my investigations until today when I re-visited her page to write more about Annie. I found there was a new hint.
The Mr Wibberley mentioned in Maria Hunt's letter was Brian Wibberley, a Primitive Methodist missionary who came to Australia in 1886. He had four brothers and one sister, Annie, born in Ashbourne, Derbyshire. The brothers were John,(1850) Henry, (1851) William, (1856) and Joseph (1857). Then came Annie in 1861 and Brian in 1866. Their parents were Brian and Ann née Riley.
Ashbourne is described appealingly in this article from the 1906 Christian Messenger:
'Ashbourne is a thriving market town in Derbyshire, situated in a valley of surpassingly beautiful scenery, thirteen miles from Derby, and within here miles of Dovedale, whose romantic loveliness seems unrivalled; hence it is called “England’s miniature Switzerland.”'
Ann Riley was the daughter of a Derbyshire farmer. Brian Wibberley, father, was the son of an agricultural labourer. in 1861, the year Annie was born, Brian was a ‘farmer of acres, miller and shop keeper employing two men, sons 11, 8, 5, 4 and baby Annie, aged 1. They had Ann Riley’s brother William working for them on the farm.
By 1871 Brian had left the farm and the mill and had returned to his 1851 occupation of ‘provision dealer’, now at 99 Market Place Ashbourne. Perhaps this is the shop referred to in 1861. Brothers, John, (21) Henry (18) and Joseph, (14) were described as a butcher or butchers’ assistant. William (15) was a clerk. Perhaps all these sons’ work was connected to the Provision dealing business. Annie (11) and, Brian, (4) were scholars. Also living in the house was Mary Ann Gresham, a lodger, a 60 year old retired chatelaine, someone who’s job was to manage a big house. Also William Lea, a porter, helping in the business. Ann née Riley was the ‘wife’, responsible for keeping everyone fed, clean and clothed. There was no domestic servant, but maybe the retired chatelaine was not too grand to help in the kitchen.
Ann Riley died in 1877 when Annie was only 16 and her little brother 11. Without wanting to diminish their grief, it’s hard to know how traumatic it would have been because they were much more experienced in death than a 16 year old and an 11 year old would be today. They did have religion and would have believed in an after life in heaven. For Annie it would have involved an immediate change of roles. She had to take on her mother’s housekeeping role. She kneaded her tears into the bread and let them drop as shes scrubbed the hearth, while little brother Brian steeped himself in Primitive Methodism.
In the 1881 Census Annie, now aged 21, was described as the Housekeeper although they did have a 19 year old domestic servant, Martha Poyser, who would have done some of the heavy work of bringing in the wood, cleaning out the fire box, lighting the fire in the morning and beating the carpets. Did they make their own butter and pluck the goose before putting it in the oven? The heavy laundry may have been done by the next door neighbour, who is described in the census as a laundress.
Father Brian was a Miller and corn dealer. They lived at Sturston Mill. I imagine the family in Mill on the Floss and wonder if that’s why grandpa liked that book so much. There was a carter who moved product in a horse and cart. On the day of the census there was a visitor staying in the house, a Primitive Methodist Minister. Did they serve tea in the front parlour? Did Annie serve stilton on Derbyshire oat cakes? Or make Bakewell tart or Ashbourne gingerbread?
The Primitive Methodist Chapel in Ashbourne
At this time oldest brother John had married, opened his own butcher’s shop and had a child. They employed a general servant. Only the younger children Annie and Brian were still living with their father.
In 1882 Brian re-married and moved over the border to Nottingham where he took up being a provisions dealer again.
In 1885 younger brother Brian was ordained in the Primitive Methodist church and the following year he left for Australia.
Annie disappeared from the public record from the age of 21 in the 1881 census until she married at the age of 36. What was she up to? I have two theories:
1. She was living with one of her brothers, probably John, financially supported by him and helping in his house or shop as housekeeper and child carer. I cannot find either of them on the 1891 census but John had a thriving butcher shop business in 1901 supporting his wife and six children.
Or 2. She took on work as a domestic servant.
Annie married ‘Uncle George’ Beardmore in 1897. They got married at St Peters Anglican Church in Alton Staffordshire which was where George had been baptised. George had been a servant in the 1891 census, so that adds weight to theory #2.
St Peters’ Church, Alton, Staffordshire
In 1901 the couple were living at 99 Lemon Street Derby and George supported them by working as a railway porter.
By 1911 he was working as a horse driver on the Midland Railway and they had moved to 72 Francis Street, Derby, a town some 13 miles from Ashbourne. Annie was 49, considerably older than George who was now 36.
Sadly we know from Maria Wibberley’s letter to her daughter-in-law, that George died suddenly from a heart attack. In 1917 she was 55, not an ideal time of life to be suddenly having to support herself. I do not know what she did next, only that she was apparently working as a ‘domestic help’ aged 78, in Cheadle, in Staffordshire, close to the Derbyshire border. She may have been close to some of George’s family, particularly his brother William. I hope they looked after her. She died in 1939 when she was 81.
Annie Wibberley's life was long, very much determined by being born female. With limited education and no wealth she was pressed into domestic work, cooking and cleaning for her father, her brothers, her husband and then employers, from an early age. She didn’t escape it. I guess it was not an uncommon lot.
References
Derbyshire, England, Church of England Burials, 1813 -1991 for Ann Wibberley.
English Census : 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871,1881, 1891. 1901, 1911.
England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916 -2007 for Anne Beardmore
.
Famous Derbyshire foods and where to find them
Google maps.
https://www.myprimitivemethodists.org.uk/content/category/chapelsMy Primitive methodists.org.
https://www.myprimitivemethodists.org.uk/content/place-2/derbyshire-2/ashbourne_circuit
Hunt, Maria Anne, 2019, Letters, transcribed and edited by Sally O’Wheel.
Staffordshire County Council; Newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire, England; Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths for the County of Staffordshire; Reference Number: 1c/2/124
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