Postings of a Company man

A 19th-century gentleman’s diary gives a taste of a very different age. Toby Neal turns the pages in a journal of a company man.

For 19 years, Lilleshall Company employee John Wheeler kept a diary which now, almost 140 years on, gives a fascinating insight into life in Victorian Shropshire.

Spanning the years 1869 to 1888, it records developments on the local industrial scene - including a fair degree of industrial turmoil - as well as some of the hard times and tragedies of the day and developments in his personal life, including Wheeler’s natural interest in promoting the career of his eldest son Roden.

Then there are the omissions. There are, for instance, no entries whatsoever for 1870. And nothing about the death of his first wife.

Wheeler kept the diary intermittently; many of the entries are little more than jottings.

The death of his father is reported without elaboration: “January 1872 Father very ill; January 28 Father died.”

The handwritten diary has been handed down to Wheeler’s great-grandson John Stokes of Magnolia Drive, Ellesmere, and some of the background detail has been pieced together.

“He worked at the Lilleshall Company. He was a miner and was badly burned in a mining accident, apparently. He lived at Wharf House, Donnington, which I believe was a Lilleshall Company house,” said Mr Stokes.

“The diary was passed down through my mother Kathleen Stokes, nŽe Wheeler. Her father was Roden Wheeler, John’s son, who was an estate manager for the Lilleshall Company at one time.”

For Mr Stokes the thing that really stands out from the entries is the hardship of those Victorian days.

As for why his great-grandfather kept the diary, he has no idea.

“There are so many questions you want to ask and there’s nobody to answer them.”

John Wheeler was born about 1848 at Lilleshall and was married on April 3, 1869, to Mary Jones at Hanley parish church. The full story, however, is not told in the diary.

“He must have been a bit of a Casanova, actually. He was courting my great-grandmother. He left her and apparently he took up with somebody else, this Mary Jones. She died in childbirth after 12 months and I believe then that he went back to my great-grandmother and married her. She was Mary Maria Thompson. “He had nine living children, and lost several in childbirth.”

The diary starts with an entry for February 21, 1869: “Banns published in Parish Church Hanley.”

Here is a flavour of the rest of the largely unpunctuated entries:

April 3, 1872: Very little work done. Granville Festivities Birth of Lord Leveson. Ball 200 upwards of £700 subscribed 16 beasts given away 3300 recipients 4500 scholars tea & C Pit girls about 600 dined Public dinner Committee & friends about 60. Shooting of 56lbs cask powder. Mrs Nocks Procession mile long 15000 to 20000 people Decorations etc.

June 26, 1872: Opening New Schools at Priors Lee.

July 2, 1872: Women holding meeting demanding lower prices of meat, milk etc.

December 8, 1872: Eight men dropped at Little Dawley. Chain broken - all killed.

January 13, 1873: Pit Girls on strike, about 200 going around works cases of assault & intimidation by the girls. They want full pay for Saturday when they cease work at 2pm.

September 11, 1875: Accident at H. Guy’s pit near Lodge Fce. 11 men & boys suffocated. Fire in airway between the two pits.

February 22, 1876: Commenced building Cottage on site of Moses Cross’ old house.

September 1877: Thos. Williams of Muxton told me about my Greatgrandfather. His name was George. Held on lease a small farm at Muxton under the Duke of Sutherland. The oldman died leaving all to his wife. She spent all & let the land which was afterwards taken from the family and put to other tenants. A meadow near Honnington House is still called Wheelers Piece.

April 11, 1879: Lill. Co. Colliery New Hadley closed.

November 7, 1883: The “Fighting Cock Inn” Oakengates burned down last night. The oldest house in O’Gates. Thatched & part timber - more than 200 years.

April 28, 1884: Severe thunderstorm. Obelisk at Lilleshall struck by lightning - also 2 houses Don Wood.

November 13, 1884: Roden went to Hadley Stn. to see Mr. Newnes about employment in his office - engaged him to commence at once.

February 9, 1885: Mr. Chubb tried Steam Boat on Canal. Failure.

June 21, 1887: Queen’s Jubilee. No work general holiday. We went to Wrekin. Train to Wellington. Home 5.30. Went on the Hills to see Bonfires. Woodhouse, Cinder Hill, Lilleshall Hill, Wrekin & Clee Hill.