The Hendy family is recorded as being at Ningwood in the census for 1841 and 1851. Ningwood was a hamlet in the parish of Shalfleet and it is the Ningwood connection, which enables us to piece the family together, out of the numerous Isle of Wight Hendys. However, at the time of the 1851 census SELINA was 18 and had left home. This was the year she bore her first illegitimate child, Emily, who died three days after her baptism, on 3.12.1851. Later, still unmarried, Selina bore five more children – at 21 Louisa 28.1.1854; at 24 Frederick 21.5.1857; at 35 twins John and ANNIE born 18.11.1866 and baptised 31.7.1868; and finally at 39 William, baptised 1872. Louisa and Frederick were both also baptised late – 20^th July 1871 at the Primitive Methodist Church. One of Selina’s children married a Frederick Thomas Fidgett on 24.3.1844. at Yarmouth.One cannot escape the feeling that SELINA was a real embarrassment to her family since some Hendys had other connections with the “Prims” (Primitive Methodists). In Ningwood., a Henry and an Isaac Hendy were among 13 men accepting a conveyance of land in February 1830 from a William Wheeler of Ningwood Farm for a Primitive Methodist chapel to be built.In the 1891 census Selina was a self employed shirt needlewoman living in the still existing Alma Place off South Street Yarmouth, with her youngest son William, then 19 who was a general labourer. Next door lived another son, Frederick. He was now 34 and a yacht steward, had married “Mary J” and had three children. Living on the other side of Selina was the Baptist Minister and one wonders whether he knew her history. At the time of the 1891 census Selina’s daughter ANNIE was the servant of some people called St John at Weston Road Totland. Mr St John was a painter from Yarmouth and his wife was a stationer who originated in Marylebone. They had four sons between 8 and 13 years old.

Selina in her old age

Meanwhile Sidney Wheeler, a sapper in the Royal Engineers, was posted to Fort Victoria on the West side of the Isle of Wight. This was near Totland and they were married at the Isle of Wight Register Office on 7.9.1891. On the certificate Annie claimed that her father was “John Hendy, deceased, a gardener”. Sidney, too, was imaginative in his declaration, giving his father as Edmund Francis Wheeler, deceased, veterinary surgeon. In fact his father was an ostler at Black Horse Yard in Bristol. There were two witnesses, Robert James Bucket and Emma Rebekah Bucket.Annie rose above her origins and became a loyal member of the Congregational church, where her funeral was held.

We have her photograph, as well as a photograph and newspaper report of their 50th wedding anniversary, which is recorded in the photograph at the top of the page. One of their children, John William Wheeler married Cissy Griffin. Their only daughter was Mary Edith Wheeler who, in 1952 married Michael Charles Horder.