Whistler Family - Odiham

    Scenes from Basingstoke and the Area

Plumbers, Shopkeepers and Bankers

The Whistler Family of Odiham and Eversley, Hampshire

On 5 November 1730 the marriage of John Whistler and Maria Grover was recorded in the parish register of Odiham, a Hampshire village about ten miles east of Basingstoke (1). A daughter Maria was baptised at Odiham on 15 September 1731 (2).

Soon after the Whistler family may have moved to another parish where children named John, Martha and Ann were born – baptism records for these three children have not been found. A short while later, a Whistler family is documented living in the Hampshire village of Eversley. Thomas, the son of John Whistler, was baptised at Eversley on 12 November 1738 (3).

The burial register for Eversley recorded the funerals of John Whistler on 21 September 1770 and Maria Whistler, widow, on 21 November 1791.

Their son John Whistler, a maltster of Wargrave in Berkshire, as a widower, married the widow Ann Round at Wargrave on 8 October 1770 (4). John Whistler, buried at Wargrave on 8 March 1797, left a will that mentioned his brother Thomas Whistler of Eversley (5).

The wedding of Thomas Whistler and Lora Lee was celebrated in Eversley on 1 August 1771. At the Eversley parish church their eldest son, Thomas, was baptised on 14 July 1774, and their second son, John, was baptised on 21 January 1776. Their younger sons were James and William and their three daughters were Ann, Martha and Lora (6). James died young – he was buried on 22 November 1801 at Finchampstead, a village on the Berkshire side of the border with Eversley.

Documents in the Hampshire Record Office, dated 1796 and 1800, give the information that Thomas Whistler leased property in Eversley from William Cordery of Swallowfield (in the county of Berkshire between Stratfield Saye and Arborfield; part of the parish was in Wiltshire until 1844 and then transferred to Berkshire) whose trustee was George Cordery, plumber of Whitchurch. The parish register for Whitchurch, Oxfordshire, reveals that the Cordery family were living in Whitchurch when John Whistler, the last descendant of the seventeenth century Whitchurch Whistlers, was also living there (7).

In 1792 Thomas and Lora’s son John Whistler was learning the trade of a plumber in Swallowfield, serving as an apprentice to the master William Girdler (8). (See notes on the Girdler family of Swallowfield). As a skilled ‘plumber and glazier’ John Whistler established a business in Aldermaston:

Craftsmen of Aldermaston and Sherborne St John

William Whistler, the youngest son of Thomas and Lora, married Charlotte Philp at Eversley on 7 September 1823. William and Charlotte were parishioners of Charles Kingsley, the rector of the parish from 1844 to 1875 and author of the famous book, The Water-Babies, published in 1862 (9). William Whistler of Eversley, described as a ‘yeoman and bailiff to A. G. Stapleton, Esquire’, died on 18 August 1850 (10). Augustus Granville Stapleton, the owner of Warbrook House, was according to a biographer, a close friend of Charles Kingsley (11).

Lora (or Laura) Whistler of Eversley became the bride of John Burrett of Sunninghill in Berkshire – their wedding took place at Odiham on 23 October 1810. Laura’s sister Ann Whistler signed the marriage record as a witness (12). Ann’s signature also appears in the parish register of Aldermaston, on 14 April 1803, when she was a witness at the marriage of her brother John Whistler to Elizabeth Patterson.

The Challen and May Family of Marlborough, Wiltshire

At the time of the 1841 census Laura, now a widow, and her unmarried sister Martha Whistler were living together in Marlborough, Wiltshire in the household of the brothers William and Benjamin Challen, who were the sons of Laura and Martha’s cousin Ann. The family connection is found in Odiham. Ann Whistler, the aunt of Laura and Martha, became the bride of William Seymour at a wedding in Odiham on 17 April 1771 (13).

William Seymour ran a prosperous draper’s shop on the High Street of Odiham that was a legacy for his son and namesake William. Martha, a daughter of William and Ann Seymour, married George May at the Odiham parish church on 21 June 1798. At another wedding in Odiham, on 26 October 1799, Martha’s sister Ann Seymour became the wife of John Challen, then a resident of St James, Westminster.

The Challens started married life in London where they were members of a group known as Peculiar Calvinists who met at Providence Chapel, Great Titchfield Street, Marylebone. In about 1805 they moved to Marlborough where they joined the Providence Chapel in Kingsbury Street (14).

The two brothers-in-law, John Challen and George May, became business partners in Marlborough as ‘Grocers, Tea-Dealers, Chandlers, Spirit-Merchants and Cheese-Factors’. The partnership ended in 1827 when it appears that John Challen took over the firm while George May became established in the leather trade in Marlborough (15).

The firm of George May & Sons, curriers and leather cutters, still traded in 1907 as Charles B. May at the Green, Marlborough (16).

The activities of John Challen and sons were recorded in town directories for Marlborough: in 1842 and 1844 the list of gentry included Mr John Challen and Mr John Challen, junior, both of St Martin’s. In a list of bankers White and Challen were named as the managers of the North Wilts Banking Company in Marlborough. White and Challen were also the agents for Britannia life insurance on the High Street. The High Street, Marlborough, was also the address of Thomas Challen, a ‘cheese factor’; David Challen, an ‘ironmonger, brazier & tin-plate worker’; and Benjamin and William Challen: cheese factors, grocers & tea dealers, tallow chandlers, and wine & spirit merchants (17).

Martha Whistler lived with the Challen family for many years. Her will, dated 28 January 1851, named Benjamin Challen and William Challen, ‘grocers of Marlborough’, as the joint executors (18). Martha provided for her sister Laura Burrett, ‘widow now an inmate of the Fiddington House Asylum’ between the Wiltshire villages of Market Lavington and Easterton (19). She left legacies for her sister-in-law Elizabeth Whistler, the widow of the late John Whistler of Aldermaston, and all her nieces and nephews (20). For the family historian, Martha’s will gives a valuable record of family relationships to confirm the link between the Eversley Whistlers and the Aldermaston Whistlers.

The Seymour Family of Odiham, Hampshire

Now return to Odiham where William Seymour, the brother-in-law of Thomas Whistler of Eversley, was the manager of the draper’s shop on the High Street. In a Hampshire directory for 1784 William Seymour was listed as a ‘Mercer and Draper’ of Odiham. In the 1790s the Seymour business was described as a ‘Linen and Woollen Draper’ shop (21).

Commerce House, 83–91 High Street, Odiham; 18th century.
The draper’s shop of William Seymour.
The building housed a draper’s shop from about 1784 to 1968 and is now a historic building on the English Heritage list (Odiham High Street: An Itinerary, The Odiham Society, 2003, Third Edition, p. 23).
Photograph © Mr John Porter taken 25 October 2000
National Heritage List for England (Number: 1244227).

William Seymour’s son, a first cousin of John Whistler of Aldermaston, also named William Seymour, who became the head of the family’s draper’s business on the High Street of Odiham, was a founding member of a bank. A contract dated 29 May 1806 records an agreement between Richard Raggett of Odiham, David Graham of Basingstoke, Roger Attwood, a brewer of Basingstoke, and William Seymour, a draper of Odiham, ‘to establish a Bank’ at Basingstoke and Odiham (22).

In 1812 a grand house, named The White House, was built for William Seymour by John Lee and James Westbrook, local builders and stonemasons (23).

The White House, 36 High Street, Odiham.
Photograph © Mr John Porter taken 23 October 2000
National Heritage List for England (Number: 1092174).

Like the Challen family of Marlborough, William Seymour, the Odiham draper and banker, and his wife Mary, were members of a nonconformist chapel where sons William Seymour (the third) and John Grove Seymour, born in 1804 and 1807 respectively, were baptised (24). Hampshire newspapers reported the death at Odiham on 26 March 1846 of William Seymour, aged 68, ‘many years draper and banker of Odiham, . . . in him the poor have lost a friend’ (25).

John Grove Seymour succeeded his father in the banking business while his elder brother William took over the draper’s shop on the High Street.

William Seymour (the third) was a generous benefactor for Odiham – he donated money to the Independent Chapel for the building of a day and sunday school. The London Morning Chronicle reported the death on 22 March 1855 ‘at Odiham, William Seymour, Esq, aged 50’ (26).

John Grove Seymour and Helen Richardson Jackson were married at St Mary, Portsea, Hampshire on 17 June 1835 (27). In Odiham they raised their family of seven sons and four daughters (found named on census returns). The Seymour boys were players for the Greywell cricket club (28).

John Grove Seymour died on 19 January 1865, aged 57, at Torquay, a seaside resort in Devon. A newspaper notice about his funeral in Odiham conveyed that he was a well-respected member of the community: (29)

Odiham . . . the death of Mr John Grove Seymour, of the late firm of Seymour, Lamb, Brooks, and Hillier. On Thursday [26 January 1865] his remains were interred in the family vault at the Independent Chapel here. The whole of the shops in the town were closed, and the blinds of all the windows down, during the time of the interment. Odiham has lost a valuable inhabitant.

Appendix: Family History in Census Returns
    The Whistler Family of Eversley
    Augustus Granville Stapleton
    The Challen Family of Marlborough, Wiltshire
    The May Family of Marlborough, Wiltshire
    The Seymour Family of Odiham

Appendix: Wills of the Seymour Family of Odiham

Selected References
A beautifully presented local history is: Odiham High Street: An Itinerary, The Odiham Society, 2003, Third Edition (with historical notes by Sheila Millard).

Notes

(1) Photocopy from the marriage register ordered from the HRO. Phillimores Hampshire marriage registers (Vol. 6) transcribed the bride’s name as Margory. However, by inspecting the original writing in the register, the name appears to be Marya, a variation of Maria. The name was transcribed as Marya in the Hampshire Marriage Index for 1660–1753 distributed on CD by the Hampshire Genealogical Society.
The Grover family is listed as an Odiham family in the research paper by Barry Stapleton ("Family strategies: patterns of inheritance in Odiham, Hampshire, 1525–1850", Continuity and Change, Vol 14, Dec 1999, pp 385–402).

(2) Information from the Odiham Society database and the parish register on microfiche available at the SoG.

(3) Microfilm of parish register at the HRO.

(4) Transcribed copy of the parish register of Wargrave, Berkshire at the SoG. A marriage licence dated 6 October 1770 was given for John Whistler, maltster residing at Wargrave, widower, and Ann Round, residing at Wargrave, widow; bondsmen: Edmund Whitfield, gent, Wargrave (Sarum Marriage Licence Bonds accessed at Family History Online). Possibly the first wife of John Whistler was Mary Green of Sonning, Berkshire. Their marriage was recorded at St Laurence, Reading on 29 October 1764. A date and place of burial for Mary Whistler has not been found.

(5) PCC will of John Whistler, gentleman of Wargrave, Berkshire, proved on 27 March 1797.

(6) Microfilm of parish register at the HRO. As a note about spelling of names it should be recognized that spelling variations were not uncommon. For example, Lorah, Lora, and Laura appear to have been used as alternative spellings of the same name.

(7) Eversley deeds (HRO reference: 55M77/E/T3 and 55M77/E/T5), HRO online catalogue. Description of Swallowfield is in ‘Swallowfield’, V.C.H. Berkshire, Vol. 3, pp. 267–274. A reference to the Corderys as builders in Whitchurch is in Robert Noble, Footprints & Cyphers, Whitchurch Village History, 2001, page 92. Extracts from the Whitchurch parish register for the Cordery family (transcribed parish register at the SoG) are: 

   Baptisms
 8 Oct 1780    Elizabeth  d. of George Cordery & Esther
10 Nov 1782    Mary       d. of George Cordery & Esther
 5 Sep 1784    Sarah      d. of George Cordery & Esther
18 Jun 1786    Ann        d. of George Cordery & Esther
 6 Apr 1788    Caroline   d. of George Cordery & Esther
28 Mar 1790    Lucy       d. of George Cordery & Esther
25 Oct 1791    George     s. of George Cordery & Esther (née Cock)
24 Feb 1793    Sophia     d. of George Cordery & Esther (née Cook)

   Burials
 1 Apr 1792    George, infant, parents George Cordery & Esther
12 Jul 1809    George Cordery, aged 59

(8) Register of Duties Paid for Apprentices' Indentures, 1710–1811, Ancestry online database.

(9) Norman Vance, ‘Charles Kingsley (1819–1875)’, DNB. Another biographical note is Larry K. Uffelman, ‘Charles Kingsley’, The Victorian Web .

(10) The will of William Whistler of Eversley, dated 9 June 1844, was proved in the Archdeaconry Court of Winchester on 24 September 1850 (HRO). The date of William’s death was noted on the will. After naming his wife Charlotte as the main beneficiary, William requested that ‘provided there should be any property left at her decease, then it is my will and wish that twenty pounds be paid as a legacy of friendship to Charles Beatley of Basingstoke, gunsmith’. William’s niece Laura, the daughter of John Whistler of Aldermaston, was married to the Basingstoke gunmaker John Beatley and their eldest son John Charles Beatley was baptised in Basingstoke on 19 January 1827. At the time of the 1861 census, William’s widow Charlotte Whistler, aged 77, was living at Eversley Common.

(11) W. P. Courtney, ‘Augustus Granville Stapleton (1800/01–1880)’, revised from John Wolffe, DNB.

(12) A photocopy from the Odiham marriage register was ordered from the HRO. The marriage record showed the signature of John Burrett followed by ‘the mark of Laura Whistler’. This suggests that Laura had never learned to write her name; although the signature of her older sister Ann Whistler was neatly displayed in the role as a witness.

(13) Photocopies from the marriage registers of Odiham and Eversley ordered from the HRO. The signature of ‘Ann Whisler’, as the bride in the Odiham 1771 marriage record, matches the signature of ‘Ann Whisler’ who was the witness at the 1765 Eversley marriage of William Hibburd and Martha Whistler. This suggests that Ann and Martha were sisters.

(14) Providence Chapel, Great Titchfield Street, Marylebone, an independent church established by William Huntington, was burnt down in 1810 and rebuilt in Gray’s Inn Lane. Providence chapel in Kingsbury Street, Marlborough, is described in ‘The Borough of Marlborough’, V.C.H. Wiltshire Vol. 12, pp. 199–229 accessed at British History Online.
Children of John Challen and Ann Seymour (IGI): 

Birth        Baptism
  Providence Chapel, Great Titchfield Street, Marylebone, London  
16 Sep 1800  19 Jan 1801   John Challen
27 May 1802  09 Aug 1802   William Seymour Challen
31 Aug 1803  21 Nov 1803   Benjamin Challen
  Providence Chapel, Kingsbury Street, Marlborough, Wiltshire
05 Feb 1805  28 Jul 1807   James Challen
13 Jan 1807  28 Jul 1807   Thomas Challen
29 Jul 1809  22 Nov 1809   Martha Challen
22 May 1813  20 Oct 1817   David Challen

(15) London Gazette, 4 May 1827 (archive online).

(16) ‘The Borough of Marlborough’, V.C.H. Wiltshire Vol. 12, pp. 199–229.

(17) 1842 Pigot’s Directory of Derbys, Dorset . . ., and 1844 Pigot’s Directory of Berks, Bucks . . . Part 2: Hants to Wilts, & Wales, accessed at Historical Directories online.

(18) Will of Martha Whistler, proved 1852, in the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives.

(19) Fiddington House was a private asylum for comparatively well-off patients. See the history provided by the Market Lavington Museum .

(20) The Aldermaston burial register recorded that John Whistler was aged 49 at his death in 1825 – this matches the Eversley baptism date of January 1776. It can be noted that the children of John Whistler of Aldermaston share common names with the Whistler family of Eversley.

(21) Historical Directories online: 1784 Hampshire Directory and 1792–98 Universal British Directory (Hampshire extracts).

(22) HRO reference: 12M49/11 (b), viewed at the HRO, August 2010. This bundle includes a document with the title ‘Articles of copartnership between Messrs Raggett, Graham, Attwood and Seymour of the Basingstoke and Odiham Bank, 1806’. The document has the seals of each of Richard Raggett, David Graham, Roger Attwood, and William Seymour. The bank later became the Hampshire Banking Co. and then Capital & Counties Bank (see Odiham High Street: An Itinerary, p. 23).

(23) Odiham High Street: An Itinerary, p. 49.

(24) On 29 October 1801 the marriage register of Stoke next Guildford, Surrey, recorded the marriage of William Seymour, bachelor of Odiham, and Mary Grove, spinster of the parish. The witnesses were John Grove, John Grove junior and Sarah Grove (Family History Library microfilm 808497 viewed at the Vancouver Public Library). Baptisms were found in the IGI. It appears that John Grove Seymour was named after his maternal grandfather. As a note on the proximity of Odiham to Guildford, an historical review remarks that Odiham ‘thrived during the 18th century due to its location on the road from Guildford to Winchester, enabling it to become a popular stopover point for passing coaches’ (Odiham Conservation Area Character Appraisal, April 2007, p. 14, accessed online).
In the 1841 census John Seymour, aged 34, was a banker, William Seymour, aged 35, was a ‘linen draper’, and their father William Seymour, aged 63, was retired – all three had separate addresses on the High Street, Odiham. The PCC Will of William Seymour, Gentleman of Odiham, Hampshire, dated 21 April 1842, was proved 4 June 1846. The joint executors of the will were his sons William Seymour and John Grove Seymour. Legacies were left to Sarah Grove and Ann Wilkins, two sisters of his late wife. This will replaced an earlier will, dated 19 May 1830, that survives in the papers of Lamb, Brooks and Bullock of Odiham, solicitors (HRO reference: 50M63/B91/294). In the 1830 will William Seymour expressed the desire that his son John Grove Seymour become a partner in the bank and his son William Seymour succeed to the draper’s business as described below:

[page 1] ‘. . . I give and devise unto my said wife [Mary Seymour] all that messuage or tenement and premises situate in the High Street of Odiham aforesaid immediately adjoining my own dwelling house . . . I give devise and bequeath unto my said son William Seymour the following premises videlicet, All that my dwelling house shop outbuildings garden and premises situate in Odiham aforesaid wherein I now reside and carry on business as a Linen Draper and Woolstapler . . . [page 6 (last page)] . . . And whereas by virtue of the Copartnership articles entered into and existing by and between me the said William Seymour and Richard Raggett as Bankers at Basingstoke and Odiham I am empowered to nominate by Will a person to succeed me at my decease in the said Copartnership and to become a Copartner in my stead Now I the said William Seymour by virtue and in execution of such power and authority do hereby nominate and appoint my said son John Grove Seymour to succeed me in the said Copartnership and to become a Copartner in my stead pursuant to the said power and authority and request my said Copartner to admit my said son John Grove Seymour as such Copartner immediately after my decease And I hereby give and bequeath unto the said John Grove Seymour the sum of one thousand pounds originally lodged by me in the said Banking business as my deposit or share in the capital thereof . . .’.

(25) 19th Century British Library Newspapers online: Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle and Hampshire Advertiser & Salisbury Guardian 28 March 1846.

(26) An historical note about Odiham states that the Independent Chapel in Odiham ‘has a large day and sunday school, built in 1849, by the late William Seymour, Esq’ (William White, History, gazetteer and directory of the county of Hampshire, 1878, p. 357, accessed at Google Books online). The death notice was found in 19th Century British Library Newspapers online.

(27) Hampshire Marriage Index (excluding the Isle of Wight) 1813–1837, distributed on CD by the Hampshire Genealogical Society.

(28) Early players for the Greywell cricket club, with records starting about 1858, were the four Seymour brothers John, Edward, Henry and Arthur who ‘were members of an old banking family belonging to Odiham’ (Douglas Smith, The Origins of Cricket: the history of two Hampshire Clubs, published by Odiham and Greywell Cricket Club, 1980).

(29) Newspaper reports from 19th Century British Library Newspapers online: The Hampshire Advertiser, 28 January 1865; The Leeds Mercury, 26 January 1865 reported: ‘Jan 19th, at Torquay, aged 57, John Grove Seymour, Odiham, Hants, father of Mrs Francis M Jackson, of Hall Bank, Bowdon’. Francis Morris Jackson and Helen Seymour were married in 1862 (FreeBMD website). Deaths occurred on 17 December 1870 ‘at Odiham, Hants, John, eldest son of the late John Grove Seymour, Esq, aged 34’ (The Hampshire Advertiser); on 18 July 1878 ‘at Odiham, Hants, William, second son of the late J. G. Seymour, Esq, and late of John Street, Adelphi, aged 38 years’ (Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle); and on 11 September 1884 ‘at Odiham, Francis, sixth son of the late John Grove Seymour, Esq, formerly Assistant Surgeon at the Norfolk County Asylum, Thorpe, aged 35’ (The Hampshire Advertiser).
On 25 February 1893 The Hampshire Advertiser reported the death of the family matriarch ‘on the 18th instant, at Odiham, Hants, Helen Richardson [Seymour], widow of John Grove Seymour, in her 82nd year’.

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