Henry was born during 1843 in Burton-on-Trent, the son of
John and Esther Whitehouse
and the grandson of
William and Martha Uglow.
Like his brothers, John and George before him, he went into the brewing industry and by 1861 was working as a brewer’s clerk for one of
the local Burton breweries.
In 1870, aged 26 and working as a commercial traveller in Coventry, he married Ann Salisbury in Providence Chapel, Rugeley.
Ann’s father William Bartholomew Salisbury, a retired farmer and saddler, was chairman of the Rugeley Board ( a post similar to a present day
‘mayor’) and prominent in the Primitive Methodist church. Her mother, Eleanor, who had died in 1865 was her father's first cousin, the daughter
of Thomas Salisbury, a Sheffield chemist.
Henry and Ann spent their married life in the Midlands - Coventry, Kings Norton, Aston and finally Dudley - before they separated around
1879/1880. They had five children who survived infancy, four girls and one boy. After separation, the daughters were sent off to boarding
school or to foster parents. Henry continued living in Dudley where he worked as manager for the Burton Brewing Company and Ann may have
got work in the brewing industry.
By 1883, Ann, then 36, had formed a relationship with a 19 year old brewer’s timekeeper, William Clarke, who lived
in Burton. In 1884, travelling as Evelyn Anne Clarke, she went to Melbourne, Australia, with William, never to see her family again.
Evelyn Ann and William appear to have had one child, Henry Barton Clarke, born in Williamstown in 1889. In 1899, they got married
in Melbourne. It is thought that William died in Melbourne in 1914 aged 47. Evelyn Ann died there in 1934, aged 86. Their son married a
widow, Kathleen Summers/McMahon, and had stepchildren but no children of his own. He died in 1961.
When the Burton Brewery Company closed down their Dudley operation in 1888, Henry took up a new post as a brewer’s agent in Cheltenham
where he stayed until 1893. Henry died in Derby in 1896. His occupation at that time was variously described as wine merchant and pit owner.
After Henry left Cheltenham, the children went to their Aunt Hardy in Kimberley, Notts. Aunt Hardy was Ann Trease/Clarke’s first cousin
and Ann’s children were the only children on her side of the Salisbury family. Her husband, William Hardy, who had died in 1893, and his
brother, Thomas, owned a brewery
(which closed in December 2006).
- Daughter, Eleanor Salisbury, was born in 1870 in Coventry. “Nellie” became an accomplished harp layer and was a music teacher
in Cheltenham. In 1898, aged 27, she got married in Ledbury to James Oscar Parker (‘Joe’), a US born journalist and 53 year old widower with two daughters
‘Dot’ and ‘Young Nell’. Dot married Eric Bloodworth and lived in the Croydon area of South London. Young Nell married twice. The first
time was to a Von Kugelgen in Russia about 1914 but he was killed in the 1917 revolution. The second time was to Rudi Ulrich. She and Rudi
had three children and lived in Salzwedel which is south of Hamburg.
Joe and Nellie lived in London before retiring to Kent. In later years, they used to take paying guests to eke out money. From about 1921
onward, Joe was partly paralysed and used a wheel chair. After Joe died in 1927, Nellie moved to South London generated an income by
various means; she sublet property, became interior design correspondent for “The Lady” and wrote a cookery book. She befriended
Cecil Court, a London solicitor, but his practice got into difficulties and he committed suicide by throwing himself out of a
hotel window.
Eventually she retired to Hastings to be with her sisters and died there.
- Daughter Florence Emily was born in Coventry in 1871. She
was fluent in many European languages and became a finishing governess in Europe teaching painting, music, and, of course, English.
Although she worked in many parts of Europe, she disliked the travelling part of her work. Between assignments she stayed with friends,
relatives, or in hotels.
In 1914, just after the outbreak of the First World War, at the age of 42, she married Edwin Frederick Payne, a chartered accountant who
had two grown up children by a previous marriage. After their marriage they lived in Wandsworth, London. In 1917, aged 45, she had a son.
The following year, her husband died of a heart attack. Widowed at 46 and with a one year old baby to look after,
she started a postal business as "Madame Therese" selling hand painted silk buttons, brooches, handkerchief sachets, and the like, which
she made herself at home.
She met her second husband, William Allen Clement, because she had let a room to his niece, Rosie Hale. They married in 1920 at Christ
Church Wandsworth. He ran a moneylending company from an office in London. He gave up his office about 1933 and tried to carry the business on from their home with diminishing success.
Florence and her husband moved to Hastings to be with her sister Ethel about 1947 and they both subsequently died there.
- Daughter Ethel Whitehouse was born in Kings Norton in 1872. Ethel married John Thomas Adams, ‘Jack’, in Kimberley, Notts in 1897. Jack had
been brought up in the Norfolk countryside and was of tall striking appearance. He was by all accounts a splendid fellow liked equally by
men and women.After they married, they moved to London where Jack became secretary or London agent for a rich Frenchman, M. Daniel de la
Chaussee, and among other things Jack used to buy at London antique auctions on his behalf.
Ethel and Jack had one child who died at birth, a great sorrow; never mentioned.
About 1910 they left London and went to live in Kent where they led a very active social life and supported the scouts, church, tennis
club, and National Farmers Union. They lived very well and worked very hard running a 15 acre farm by themselves. Ethel was very practical,
always busy cooking, gardening, making butter and cheese, looking after poultry, and dressmaking.
Her sister Florence’s son, Ivan , who spent
many happy childhood days with Uncle Jack and Aunt Ethel in Kent recollected that "Once they collected a couple of hundred mole
skins, which she made up into a fur coat! Jack used to get up early in the morning and you would hear him for many minutes pumping up the
water. Jack ran an impressive car - an Albert, which he had for most of their Benenden years, an open 4 seater with a bonnet like a Rolls
and a separate windscreen for the rear seats. Most impressive! I think he was dead scared of it! Jack and his nephew, Will's son Ken, also
got on very well. They both enjoyed fishing, shooting and other country things."
Jack died in Kent in 1939. Ethel died in Hastings.
- Son William Henry was born in Aston in 1875. Family
legend is that 'Will' won a choral scholarship to Kings College Cambridge. In 1906
he married Cordelia Longridge Halder in York. She was 25, the daughter of Charles Halder.
Within the family, Will’s wife was always known as “Frog” or “Froggie” for reasons long lost but certainly not a comment on
her looks! To her friends she was 'Corrie'.
When he married, Will was a draper (no doubt introduced to this career by Uncle
William) and living in Manchester. With a
business colleague called Bush, he ran a collar renewal service but the business failed taking most of Will’s money with it. In the early
twenties, Will went to London to find work. He bought/leased a property in Clanricarde Gardens in Notting Hill Gate W.2 to sub-let
into flats and the family
then moved down from Manchester. Will found it difficult to let the rooms because of the depression and eventually he sold the lease/property.
For several years from about 1935 Will ran a hotel/guest house called Palace Court but it was not very profitable. It appears
that the guests were treated to sumptuous food well beyond what was commercially expedient. He
then bought a large house in Tulse Hill and advertised for a paying guest. Doris, whose German husband had been interned, applied. While
Doris went to work, her son was looked after by Frog and Will. Doris and Frog became lifelong friends.
In 1946, Will took penicillin for a leg infection and died, possibly from penicillin poisoning. Will had been a larger than life, fun
character, and was sorely missed by all who knew him.
After he died, Frog became a “companion/home help” mainly to old people. She always
looked much younger than her real age. Many of the old people she companioned did not
realize she was older than them! Eventually she went into a nursing home in Brighton, where she died.
Will and Frog had four children, two sons who survived infancy, and a son and daughter who died in infancy.
-
Son, Percy was born in Aston 1876/7 and died in infancy in Aston in 1878.
- Daughter, Lillian Edith was born in 1877/1878 in Aston. She was always known as “Edith”. When her parents separated she was looked
after by the Smytheman family at Etchinghill, Rugeley.
From 1893 she appears to have lived at Kimberley with her Aunt Hardy, who seems to have become very attached to her, as she writes in 1910
'I am looking forward to having my Edie home it has seemed a long time'.
When Aunt Hardy died in 1910 it is not clear where she lived but
she probably stayed with her sisters. She appears to have travelled considerably and not to have had a job. On her travels she met a
Californian called Francis "Frank" Joseph Sullivan and after a short courtship, they decided to get married.
She left for California in 1921/2 and Frank and Edith set up home in Inglewood, now a
suburb of the sprawling Los Angeles conurbation, but then much more rural. In 1923, Edith died
suddenly, probably from appendicitis. Edith and Frank had no children. Frank is believed to have come over to the UK in 1927 to wind up
Edith’s estate over here.