Weddescendants - pafc01 - Generated by Personal Ancestral File

The Wedderburn Family - 1  

jamaica - England - South africa - Australia - new zealand

see high res. photo of van approx 1895 (85K)

More information? Peter Garwood

Research on the Wedderburn family began on the basis of the following information from family sources:

 

The Wedderburn family was known to have been involved in scalemaking for many generations. A considerable amount of information was already known: Jabez Wedderburn (1866-1936) was the founder of Wedderburn Scales, Australia, in 1896. His father and namesake, also a scalemaker, had a business in the High Street, Peckham, London.

 

There were other branches of the family who started businesses of their own in Australia and G A Wedderburn and Co still operate from their premises in Southampton, England, as scalemakers. We were supplied with the marriage certificate of Jabez (William) Wedderburn and Ruth Smith, father of Jabez who emigrated to Australia, dated I July 1866 and this showed that Jabez senior was the son of an earlier Jabez, also a scalemaker. We also had the death certificate of Jabez William Wedderburn senior (10 December 1915); a press article on the Southampton firm; and various other notes, photographs and correspondence.

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We began our work in directories of London to establish the addresses of the Wedderburn businesses in Peckham and Islington. We found the following listed;

 

Islington Directory 1855

 

List  of  Residents:      W  T  Wedderburn      4  Grange  Cottages,  Canonbury  Park  West

 

Surrey Directory 1862

 

Commercial:           Robert Wedderburn    Scalemaker, Katherine Place, Commercial Road, Peckham

 

London Post Office Directory 1862

 

Commercial:             Jabez Wedderburn       Scalemaker, 22 Rufford's bldgs, Islington

 

We now turned to census returns. Decennial census returns were instituted in England and Wales in 1801, with personal returns given from 1841 onwards; from 1851 onwards the precise age and birthplace is given for each member of the household. The latest return currently open to public inspection is that of 1891. We found Robert Wedderburn, the man listed in the Surrey directory, in Commercial Road in 1861:

     

 Census 7 April 1861  

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Peckham, Camberwell

PRO RG 9 382 ED7fol 145r

Entry 37 Crown Wharf, Commercial Road

                                                                                                                                                born

 

Robert Wedderburn               Head mar            30            Master Scale Maker             Surrey             Bermondsey

Martha do                                Wife                    35                                                            Gloucs            Cheltenham

Robert E do                              Son                       6             Scholar                                  Surrey             Southwark

Martha do                                Dau                     10             do                                                                          do

Emily do                                   Dau                       8              do                                                                          do

Frederick                                  Son                       2                                                                                     Bermondsey

   

We had been sent a transcription of the 1881 census return for Robert and Martha Wedderburn of Commercial Road, who appeared to be the same family, but in 1881 Robert's age was given as 67 according to the transcript we had been sent. When we checked this with the original we found that the 1881 return in fact gave Robert's age as 51:

   

Census 3 April 1881

Peckham, Camberwell

PRO RG II 681 ED6fol 43v

   

Entry 93: 108 Commercial Road, Peckham  

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Robt Wedderburn              Head mar              51               Scale Maker                     Bermondsey           Surrey   

Martha do                            Wife mar              55                                                          Cheltenham

Martha T do                        Dau un                 30               assists mother                  Southwark            do

Fredk do                               Son un                 22               baker                                  Bermondsey         do

Walter H do                         Son                      17                compositor                        Peckham                do

Herbert G do                        Son                      15                scale maker                           do

Kate E    do                          Dau                      13                scholar                                   do

   

The three eldest children were born in Southwark. The 1851 census returns of Southwark have been indexed by surname. We found Robert and Martha Wedderburn with their new baby, staying with another family:

   

Census 30 March 1851

St Saviour, Christchurch, Southwark

PRO HO 107 1558 ED3fol 23 lr  

 

Entry 130 15 Redcross Street, St Saviour, Southwark  

 

James Piggot                           Head mar                              51               Drayman                Huntingdon

Ann do                                   Wife mar                               52                                              Norfolk

Robert Wedderburn               Visitor mar                            21                scalemaker             Bermondsey           Surrey

Martha do                              wife mar                                25                                              Cheltenham             Glos

Martha do                              dau                                  2 months                                         Southwark              Surrey

   

We now knew that Robert was born in Bermondsey in about 1831. At this stage we consulted the International Genealogical Index (1992 edition). The IGI is a microfiche index to baptisms and marriages compiled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church), from a combination of parish registers and family information. While neither complete nor wholly accurate it serves as useful guide to the original records and it is especially useful in the metropolitan area where registers are extremely large and time-consuming to search and the population very mobile.  

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We were fortunate in that we found not only Robert's baptism at Bermondsey included in the IGI, but also those of his siblings and we followed up the entries in the original registers of the various parishes:  

 

Spitalfields Christ Church

Original Registers

Baptisms 1822, 1824  

 

29 Dee 1822 Sophia Phebe dau of Jabez and Sophia Clarkson Wedderburn of ?Garr Street scalemaker (born 27 September 1820)

7 Nov 1824 James William son of Jabez and Sophia Clarkson Wedderburn of Fort Street scalernaker

   

Finsbury St Luke, Old Street

Original Registers

Baptisms 1822  

 

22 Dee 1822 Mary Ann dau of Jabez and Sophia Wedderburn of Great Arthur Street scalemaker (born 18 September)  

 

Bermondsey, St Olave

Original Registers                                          

Baptisms 1827  

 

29 Apr 1827 Jabez son of Jabez and Sophia Clarkson Wedderburn of Joiner Street scalemaker (born 1 March)  

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Southwark, St Saviour

Original Registers

Baptisms 1829  

 

13 Dee 1829 Elizabeth dau of Jabez and Sophia Clarkson Surrage Wedderburn of Fishmonger Alley scalemaker (born 20 July)  

 

Bermondsey, St Mary Magdalene

Original Registers

Baptisms 1832  

 

6 May 1832 Robert Cooper son of Jabez and Sophia Wedderburn of West Street scale beam maker (born 28 October 1831)  

 

This shows how very mobile the family was between 1820 and 1832. There was considerable variation in the form Sophia's name took and we also found her baptism; she was illegitimate, which explains the different forms in which her name appears:

   

Hackney, St John

Original Registers

Baptisms 1802  

 

13 Aug 1802 Sophia Clarkson (illegitimate) dau of James Clarkson & Phoebe Surrage (born 16 July 1802)  

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We did not find the marriage of Jabez and Sophia on the IGL We also consulted a privately held marriage index which covers London and Middlesex parishes for this period, but the results was again negative.  

 

We now knew that Robert (Cooper) Wedderburn, scalemaker, was the son of Jabez and Sophia Wedderburn. Returning to our directory listings (see page 1), we now wished to find Jabez Wedderburn of Islington in a census return. The address given in the directory was 22 Rufford's Buildings, Islington and we found the family in Islington High Street at number 22:

   

Census 7 April 1861

Islington East

PRO RG 9 148 fol 126r  

 

Entry 33: 22 High Street                                                                                                   born  

 

Jabez Wedderburn                Head mar                34               scale maker                        Scotland

Harriet        do                      Wife mar                 35                                                          Norfolk                  Brandon

Jabez          do                       Son                         12               scholar                                London                  Golden Lane

Harriet       do                        Son                         10                   do                                                                         do

Robert       do                        Dau                          8                    do                                                                         do

George       do                        Son                          5                    do                                                                          do

James        do                         Son                          3                                                                                           Islington

Frederick   do                        Son                           1                                                                                                 do

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This Jabez was born in about 1827, of the right age to be the brother of Robert Cooper Wedderburn, but said that he was born in Scotland. We also looked in the surname index to the 1851 census for Islington, to check this in another census return, but there was no entry for Jabez. We did find the W T Wedderburn whom we had noted from the Islington directory (see page 1): he was a clerk in the Post Office, born in Taunton, Somerset, in about 1806/7 and did not obviously fit into the family picture. Jabez, the twelve-year old son of Jabez and Harriet Wedderburn, was born in Golden Lane in about 1849 and we now made a search for his birth certificate. Civil registration commenced in England and Wales on I July 1837, since which date most births, marriages and deaths have been registered centrally at the General Register Office in London. Registration was however not enforced until 1875, and many births went unrecorded before this date, although the registration of marriages and deaths could rarely be avoided. We found Jabez� birth without difficulty (see Appendix i, and enclosed):

   

Registration District St Luke Middlesex

Sub-district White Cross Street

County of Middlesex  

 

13 May 1849             Jabez William [son of] Jabez Wedderburn Scale Maker [of] 24 Baltic Street, St Luke [&] Harriet Wedderburn formerly                                       Bassom  

 

We then made a search for Jabez and Harriet's marriage. Brides and grooms are listed separately in the quarterly marriage indexes, intermingled alphabetically. The only information given in the indexes before 1911 is the name of the bride or groom, the registration district and the reference number. To locate a particular marriage it is therefore necessary to check the various entries for the two names until a matching pair is found.  The couple were found to have married in 1846 (see appendix ii):  

 

St John's Church, St John Waterloo

County of Surrey  

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27 Dec 1846                Jabez Wedderburn [of] full [age] Bachelor Scale Maker [of] Thomas Street [son of] Jabez Wedderburn Scale Maker

                                    & Harriet Bassom [of] full [age] Spinster [of] Thomas Street [dau of] John Bassom Wine porter                     

Banns                                              

Witnesses:  T Willy, M A Willy  

This confirmed that Jabez, husband of Harriet, was the son of Jabez Wedderburn, scale maker, and although the census return gave his birthplace as Scotland it seemed most likely that he was the child baptised at St Olave, Bermondsey in 1827, and the brother of Robert Cooper Wedderburn. We now wanted to know more about the earliest Jabez Wedderburn, husband of Sophia Clarkson or Surrage. Unfortunately the Bermondsey 1851 census returns have not been indexed and we had no address for the family after 1832, when they were of West Street, Bermondsey. We tried the 1841 and 1851 returns for this address and the surrounding enumeration district, but with no success; the family had moved on. Because of the reference to Scotland (and the name is certainly a Scottish one) we decided to carry out some brief searches in Scottish records. Births, baptisms and marriages in Scottish parish registers have been indexed centrally, which makes searching much easier than in English records. We searched firstly for the birth or baptism of Jabez who said he was born in Scotland in about 1827, but there was no such baptism. We also looked for the marriage of Jabez Wedderburn and Sophia Clarkson or Surrage, and for the baptism of this earliest Jabez, but all without success

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The baptism of Jabez Wedderburn, husband of Sophia, does not appear on the IGI. We turned now to apprenticeship records. Scalemakers did not have their own livery company and could have belonged to any company. This makes it difficult to search for an apprenticeship in this period (there are centralised indexes for the period 1710-1774 as during this period stamp duty was levied on bindings, but not for the later period). However, if Jabez served an apprenticeship with a City of London Freeman his apprenticeship had to be enrolled in the Chamberlain's Court and these records survive. We searched the Records of Apprenticeship Enrolments (1786-1843) and working forwards from 1786 eventually found the following:  

 

Records of Apprenticeship Enrolments

Corporation of London Record Office

March 1811  

 

Jabez Wedderburn son of Robert of Long Acre Apprentice of Wm Lewis Nicholl Blacksmith from 7th March 1811 for I years.  

 

We also searched the index to freedom papers, as Jabez might have become a freeman of the City on completing his apprenticeship, but there was nothing indexed for the years 1817, 1818 or 1819 under his name.

   

As this was a suitable apprenticeship for a scalemaker and as the name and age fit (apprentices were usually about 14, which would make Jabez about 23 at the birth of his first child), we decided that this must be the correct record for the ancestor. At this point we also carried out a little research to see how the Southampton Wedderburns fitted into the picture. The press information we had told us that George Alexander Wedderburn moved to Southampton from London in the 1870s and acquired a scalemaking business in Bernard Street, formerly Bridge Street (these premises were destroyed by an air raid in 1940). George died in 1918 and the business was continued by his son Lionel. We obtained a copy of the death certificate of George Alexander Wedderburn to establish when he was born (appendix iii). We found that he in fact died in 1917:  

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Registration District Southampton

Sub-district Southampton Western

County of Southampton  

 

9 Feb 1917 at Grosvenor House Nursing Home

George Alexander Wedderburn 60 years

Scale Maker (Master) of 12 Bernard Street

Informant: F W V Wedderburn, son, of 12 Bernard Street, Southampton  

 

This put his date of birth as 1856/7 and made it very likely that he was the George Wedderburn, son of Jabez and Harriet, born in 1855/6 according to the census return.

   

At this point research had to come to a halt. We have established that the family were scalemakers at least since the early years of the nineteenth century and found the links between the English branches of the family. Taking the ancestry back to earlier generations might prove more difficult but there is certainly plenty of scope for further research, which could include work in probate sources and wider searches for the marriage of Jabez Wedderburn and Sophia Clarkson or Surrage, and for the baptism of Jabez, son of Robert Wedderburn. The hint of a Scottish connection is intriguing, and interestingly the blacksmith William Lewis Nicholl to whom Jabez was apprenticed also has a Scottish name, but we have found no trace of the family in Scottish records as yet.

 

Sources Consulted  

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Civil Registration

General Register Office, St Catherine's House, London

Birth Jabez (William) Wedderburn 1849

Marriage Jabez Wedderburn & Harriet Bassom 1846

Death George Alexander Wedderburn 1917

 

Census Returns

Public Record Office, London

1861 Census Peckham: Commercial Road

1851 Census Southwark (surname indexed): 15 Redcross Street, St Saviour

1861 Census Islington: High Street

1851 Census Islington: (surname indexed): 23 Goulden Terrace

1881 Census Peckham: Commercial Road

1851 Census Bermondsey: West Street & surrounding enumeration district

1841 Census Bermondsey: West Street & surrounding enumeration district

 

Parish Registers

Spitalfields Christ Church                       Original Registers  Baptisms 1822, 1824

Fmsbury St Luke, Old Street                   Original Registers  Baptisms 1822

Bermondsey, St Olave                        Original Registers  Baptisms 1827

Southwark, St Saviour                         Original Registers  Baptisms 1829

Bermondsey, St Mary Magdalene               Original Registers  Baptisms 1832  

Miscellaneous

International Genealogical Index (1992): London/Middlesex, Surrey sections

Islington Directory 1847, 1852, 1855

Surrey Directory 1862

Essex, Herts, Kent, Middx, Surrey & Sussex Directory 1845, 1851, 1855

London Post Office Directory 1852,1862, 1851

Pallet Marriage Index (Jabez Wedderburn/Sophia Clarkson or Surrage)

Corporation of London Apprenticeship Enrolments 1786-1843  

Scottish Records

Index to births & baptisms (whole of Scotland) 1820 - 1830 (birth of Jabez Wedderburn)

Index to births & baptisms (whole of Scotland) 1775-1805 (birth of Jabez Wedderburn)

Index to proclamations & marriages (whole of Scotland) 1800-1825 (marriage of Jabez/Sophia

Wedderburn)

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