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While searching for the origins of my father's family I have had the great pleasure of making the acquaintance of a number of cousins . ( I hope I may call them that, although with some I share only a four-greats grandfather) who have contributed information, for which I thank them; Stephen, grandson of my Grandfather's brother George, who found the Warborough and Berrick records; Eric, descendant of the Edward Wellers, who has a portrait of William 1 and the Family Bible that confirmed our guesses about the birth of William; Jac, great grandson of William and Lydia, who gave a great deal of information; also Freda, a cousin of my Father, and Richard, another descendant of the Edward Wellers. Stephanie was able to tell me about our Grandfather's first family and their descendants. Thanks also to Aunt Joyce and Uncle Arthur for all their help, and to Mr. Nick Salmon who very kindly gave me his notes on the Brewery from his work for a history of Amersham; also those Amersham people who shared their memories of the brewery, and Mr. Green of Tylers Green.
I am grateful also to another Eric, my husband, for his help in many ways. We have spent many hours in libraries and record offices, poring over the old records and afterwards discussing our findings and trying to piece them together. It has been very interesting.
Our name has been said to mean 'dweller by a spring or well' or 'a salt boiler' from O.E. wielle = bubbling up. The earliest record is of Richard le Weller in Sussex, 1272 (Feet of Fines), then Gregory Wellor in Cumberland, 1332. There is Eustacius le Weler in the Cartulary of Eynsham in the mid-14th.C, he 'held from the lord one messuage with half a virgate of land for an annual rent of 6 shillings'.
The earliest ancestors we have found were the Wellers of Warborough in Oxfordshire, but we know nothing about them apart from what is recorded in the registers, where the name is sometimes spelled Wheler but in the next generation is Weller again. We have found many variations of spelling, such as Welled and Welhead, which we are sure refer to the same family. At Warborough there is the spelling of William with two y's Wyllyam. There is no record of his burial there, and the only other William-with-a-y we have seen, among many Williams, was buried at Benson, some two miles away, where some of the family from Berrick Prior or Berrick Salome were buried also. This leads us to believe the family had moved to Berrick from Warborough.
The Berrick records are in the Newington registers and begin for us with the marriage of John to Mary Allam in 1669. Their son Thomas, described as 'of Roke' in his will, is the first person of whom we have some details. He was a thatcher and in his will he left his property to his wife for her lifetime, then to their children. John is to have the house and appurtenances, William two acres of land. We have a copy, with Thomas’ signature.
John, son of Thomas, was a thatcher like his father, and became licensee of The Chequers at Berrick Prior - a substantial brick building which he purchased later for £200. There is a set of initials on the extension he built, which we take to be his. Some of the graves of his descendants are still visible in the churchyard nearby. We have a copy of his will - he seems to have done very well as a ' victualler'.
William, John's brother, who was baptised at Newington on Nov. 5th. 1727, next appears in High Wycombe, as witness at the marriage of Martha Weller (his sister?) and Nehemia Wood, in 1755. On July 10.1758 he married Ann House in High Wycombe, and then was described as a maltster, of High Wycombe. They were married by licence, as was fashionable at that time, and one John Barton stood surety for in the sum of £100, to be forfeited if the marriage were invalid - suggesting that he was well known in Wycombe by that time. We have copies of the Bond and the entry in the Register of Marriages, which when we saw it was at the High Wycombe library. William's signature is firm and clear but Ann signed with a cross.
In 1758 and several years thereafter William was on the jury at Chepping (now High) Wycombe Quarter Sessions and in 1764 was Overseer of the Poor for a year. This was usually regarded as a prelude to higher office, but he left Wycombe, probably about 1776, for Amersham, where he had acquired the lease of the brewery next to the church, in Church lane, where it still stands though somewhat altered in appearance and no longer brewing.
William and Ann, my great-great-great-great grandparents, had thirteen children, eleven being baptised at High Wycombe and the last two, in 1777 and 1780, in Amersham, which gives an idea of when the move to Amersham was made. They still had some property in Wycombe, where it appears in the rate assessments.
Visit the tree compiled by Barbara Taylor.
The business flourished despite difficulties such as poor barley harvests in some years and William was able to buy several public houses in Amersham and surrounding villages and, in 1783, the Griffin malthouse. This building still exists though not as a malthouse.
When William died in 1802 he left the brewing business to two of his sons, John and William 2nd. His second son Thomas was not concerned with the brewery, having become a butcher in Penn where he lived with his wife Charlotte. They were my 3-greats-grandparents and I will return to them later.
John and William expanded the business, purchasing more public houses and building the stables and coach houses opposite the brewery- still there, not much altered. In 1818 they were able to buy the brewery and its outbuildings and some land on which to build new larger mattings, with a water-wheel. About this time the brewery buildings were refaced with brick.
When John and William 2nd. died the business passed to John's son Edward, who died at Turnham Green and was buried at Amersham in the family plot beside the church, and William's son William 3rd. After his death his sons William, Edward and George carried on the business which by this time had become the largest employer of labour in the town, with half the workforce in its employ. The Wellers were generally considered to be good employers; their employees occupied tied cottages at modest rents and if a man died his widow was allowed to remain, when many employers would have turned them out immediately. At Christmas the men were given large joints of beef- 6lbs. for a single man, 8lbs. if married, or the equivalent in pork or mutton. George gave half a barrel of ale to the poor, his wife added tea, sugar, plum cake and tobacco.
When Edward died, aged only 46, George bought his share from his widow, Edith. Edward had moved with his family to Brighton but still managed the farms at Amersham for a few years until his untimely death from pneumonia.
In 1900 George's son Gerard Masterman Heath Weller was taken into partnership with his father and Uncle William, but after William died in 1908 George purchased his share from his widow for £60,660 14s.5d. and at the same time bought Gerard out, Gerard then being employed as manager. George continued to run the business for another ten years or so, until he was about 75, and Gerard carried on until 1928. By then he was tired of the responsibility, saying he had not been away from his job for more than a week in 29 years. His father, though in poor health, resisted the idea of selling the business but Gerard obtained a court order to force the sale, which took place by auction in September 1929. The sale was a great blow to the people of Amersham, as it created so much unemployment, but there was no one to take Gerard's place. It had been hoped that Benskins, who bought the brewery, would keep it in operation as a bottling plant but they did not do so. The Wellers did what they could to soften the blow - with his final week's wages each man received an extra £1 for each year of service. With an average day's pay, being 3 shillings this was quite generous. They also had the option to buy their cottages.
George died on October 20th 1929 and was buried in the cemetery with his wife.
A lady whose maiden name was Miss Gomm, whose father and grandfather had worked at the brewery, told me the men were allowed to drink all they wanted at work and a gallon a day to take home. She remembered taking a stone gallon jar to the brewery each day to be filled, and said her grandmother, who had ten babies and breast fed them all, attributed this success to the excellence of the beer.
There is a clock on top of the market hall near the end of Church Lane, with one of its faces visible from the brewery. Some of the workers would slip out to see how near it was to knocking off time, so the Wellers had it blacked out.
We met a Mr. Keen whose first job as a young boy had been bottle-filling at the brewery. He remembered George, who lived at The Plantation on Amersham Common, arriving at work at 9am. sharp in a two-horse carriage with a coachman wearing a top hat with a cockade, or in bad weather in a chauffeur-driven car, a Belgian Minerva, registration number BH 5. We had never heard of such a car but soon after this saw one being driven through Gerrards Cross, a splendid looking vehicle with its horn in the form of a coiled serpent.
Mr. Keen also told us of the time the Post Office asked for all houses to be numbered. The Drakes objected to this but complied by putting the numbers on the insides of the doors! The Wellers numbered their properties independently so there was some duplication.
Mr. Dobson, whose father had been a coachman for the Wellers, and who was still living in the tiny cottage in the stable yard that had been his boyhood home, told me the family had a horse-drawn sleigh for times when there was snow on the ground.
The fact that Thomas was the second son of William 1st. and Ann is confirmed by the entry in the Family Bible in the possession of Lt.Col. Eric Weller. Born in 1761, he married Charlotte Morris of Penn in 1786 and was then described as a butcher. Charlotte's father, Stephen, lived at Putnam Place, where, it is said, Queen Catherine of Aragon lived for a time while waiting for Henry VIII to divorce her. The house was converted to tenements at one time and is now a farm - as it presumably was in Stephen's time for he was a farmer, according to his Will. In 1810 Putnam Place was assessed for rates at £60. Stephen married Mary Floyd of High Wycombe in 1762 and Charlotte was their only child.
Thomas and Charlotte lived in Penn (where their children were baptised) or perhaps in the adjoining village, Tylers Green. The shop which was until recently King's the butchers has the initials T C W on one of the bricks so it is tempting to suppose it was their home. There is also the date 1797 on two of the bricks, and over what used to be the shop is written King's, est .1782. It is now a private house.
August 1993. New information from Mr. Green of Tylers Green. In 1803 Thomas bought the two adjoining cottages known as Dell Cottage, on Church Road, Tylers Green, for £90. He sold them in 1810. Tyler Cottage, on the other side of the road, was left to Charlotte in her Mother's Will of 1810. Did Thomas and his family move to Tyler Cottage? In the 1841 Census Charlotte is 75, of independent means, living with Rebecca and Elizabeth Weller, ages 11 and 3. (her grandchildren, daughters of John and Rebecca, nee White.) There is a declaration made by Harry Hawes, aged 85, in 1868, that he remembered The Dell being built by Thomas Weller, but there is a conveyance, 1803, Mr. John Venables to Mr. Thomas Weller, £90. (Perhaps Thomas made the two into one, to accommodate the eight children he had by then, and that is the building remembered by Mr Hawes.
Stephen's parents were Jonas Morris of High Wycombe and Ann Wingrove of Penn, married 1730. Stephen was born in 1733. In 'A History of the Parish of Penn' by Gilbert Jenkins he notes, from the records of 1742, 'paid Jonas Morris for meat for Ann Yarrow and Ann Child when they had the smallpox'.
In his father's Will Thomas, with his brothers John and William, was made a trustee. He inherited a house in High Wycombe and, after a number of legacies to his brothers and sisters, a quarter of the residue, but he had no interest in the brewery.
Thomas and Charlotte had ten children; the eldest, Stephen, became my great-great-grandfather. His wife was Elizabeth, writer of the little diary that was so useful to us in our research.
Thomas died in 1823. We have been unable find his Will in spite of much searching. Charlotte died intestate in 1845; both are buried in the churchyard at Penn but the stone has gone.
When Stephen Morris died his property in Penn and Princes Risborough was left to his wife Mary, who died a few months later leaving £200 to her grandson Stephen Weller, with half of her interest in a leasehold wood -St. John's Wood- held jointly with George Hearn and Thomas Floyd, and leased from the Crown. The rest of her property was to be sold and the interest paid to her daughter Charlotte and after her death to Stephen and all other children. Shortly after his Mother's death in 1845, Stephen 'surrendered' -presumably sold- land, cottages and The Bell at Princes Risborough, previously owned by his Mother, to his cousins Edward and William Weller of Amersham. Information from Copy of Court Roll, Aylesbury Record Office, ref.D/X 875., which contains interesting details.
At the time of the death of his Mother Stephen was described as a yeoman. On April 28th. 1811 he married, by licence, Elizabeth Shackell. No occupation recorded. In 1818 they seem to have been living at Wycombe Marsh, where he paid 7/6d. rates on a house valued at £5. In 1844, when his son Stephen (the second) married, Stephen 1st. was a baker, and in the 1851 census, labourer. His handwriting, in the back of Elizabeth's book, is well formed and looks as though he was accustomed to writing.
Stephen and Elizabeth had eleven children, the first four born at Penn, the rest at Wycombe Marsh except Michael, at Loudwater in 1820. On June 21st. 1838, Elizabeth wrote "we came to Newland". She died in 1847; in 1851 Stephen was at 121 Newland, (part of High Wycombe) sharing his home with a lodger. He died in 1868, aged 81, and is buried in High Wycombe cemetery.
STEPHEN 2nd., born at Wycombe Marsh 1821, baptized at High Wycombe, married Sarah Brion on March 4th. 1844. He was then a chairmaker. In 1851 they were living at 55 Newland with the first four of their children; by then he was a French polisher. In Kelly's directory 1875 their address was 17 Temple Street, and he was making varnishes and polishes. Kelly's ' 66, ' 67, ' 68 are missing, in '69 Stephen appears as a varnish maker, but not in '65; presumably he started his new business between those years, perhaps in '68 when he asked his son Stephen to join him. Kelly's '99 - "Weller, Stephen and Son, varnish and polish manufacturers. Speciality, chair manufacturer's requisites."
I do not know when the family became Wesleyan Methodists but it is certain that Stephen 2nd. was a prominent member of the Chapel. Beside the entrance to the Chapel in West Wycombe there are several stones with names engraved upon them, including those of Mr. S. Weller snr., his daughter Sarah and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Ben North, and Mr. S. Weller jnr. The foundation stone was laid by Viscount Curzon, M.P. on Aug 8th. 1894 When a new Chapel was begun in Flackwell Heath in 1883, "the third stone was laid by Mr. S. Weller, who said it was 'most emphatically a red letter day for the good people of Flackwell Heath, and it was his earnest desire and prayer that this effort which was now put forth for the enlargement of God's House in that place might tend very materially to benefit the inhabitants' He had no doubt that it would. Each person, after laying his stone, gave £5 to the fund."
This quotation is from the local newspaper in High Wycombe library. Stephen gave an address at a Watch Night service in 1868, at a missionary meeting in 1872 and 1883, was elected Conference Representative in 1884 and was delegate to the Oxford District Meeting 1885. For some years he was a member of the School Board as Wesleyan representative, and was elected a member of the High Wycombe Council at the first election after the extension of the Borough, in 1880, also in 1881, but failed to be re-selected the following year. Also, going back to 1844, he was then Steward of the Independent Order of Rechabites, Olive Branch, tent no. 458. This, I think, was a Friendly Society whose function was to help its members in time of need.
Some time in the 1880's Stephen took his son, Stephen 3rd., my Grandfather, into partnership and a few years later retired and went to live at Lyndhurst, Priory Road, High Wycombe. He and Sarah celebrated their Golden Wedding in March 1894 and their Diamond Anniversary in 1904; I have photographs taken on the latter occasion, and some earlier ones. Both died in 1906 and were buried in High Wycombe cemetery.
The first Methodist Chapel in West Wycombe was built in 1815, near the Church Loft. At its Centenary Thanksgiving the Chairman was Edwin Weller, who was an 'accredited preacher' from 1920 until his death in 1938. By the 1890's a larger chapel was needed, so in 1894 some 17th. century cottages in the High Street were demolished and a new chapel built. Most of the wood panelling and furniture came from North's; some of the locals called it 'Bennie North's chapel'. In 1910 B.S.North was treasurer, steward, organist and choirmaster. He was a preacher from 1876 to 1921, as his father had been from 1860 to 1875, when he died. Edwin Weller was secretary. John Busby, who married Stephen 2nd.'s daughter Mary, also was a preacher, 1863-1904. In 1885 Stephen Weller (snr. I think) was a trustee for chapels at High Wycombe, Winchmore Hill, Wooburn, Prestwood, and Flackwell Heath Chapel and School. and at Victoria Street, High Wycombe, Stephen jnr. and Ben North jnr. also were trustees. The two Stephens, Edwin, and John Busby, were 'poor stewards' or 'receivers' at various times.
The Priory Road Chapel (known as 'Wesley') was opened on July 12th.1866. By the end of the l9th. century Wesley was a "fashionable" church, supported by pillars of local society. A former member said "It was an elite church in those days as a number of chair factory owners and their wives were members, together with other well - known people in the town. Most of Priory Road and Priory Avenue went there and this was the monied area at the time." Another remarked that on Sunday evenings the gallery was full of the furniture firms' employees, who were present for two reasons- it was important to be seen at church by one's employer, also the fire at home could be put out to save fuel!
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