Sherborne St John
Craftsmen of Aldermaston and Sherborne St John

An English Family

John and Sarah Ann Whistler, who were married in London in 1860, made their home in Sherborne St John at Wellington Villas, the home built by John’s father, where they raised their family of six sons (John, William, Henry, Arthur, Herbert Fred and Walter Ernest) and two daughters (Kate and Emmeline).

John and Henry

In 1888 the brothers John and Henry sailed to Argentina to work on the great railway building projects financed by British companies. John Whistler took a job as a draughtsman for the Santa Fe and Cordoba Great Southern Railway Company; Henry became a superintendent of a section of the line (1). They used the Spanish names Juan and Enrique – the parish register of St John's Anglican Cathedral, Buenos Aires recorded the marriage on 7 February 1891 of Juan Whistler, aged 29 of England, to Enriqueta Quellet, aged 20 of Switzerland; the witnesses were Henrique Quellet and Enrique Whistler (2).

It may have been expected that John Whistler, as the eldest son, would take over the Sherborne St John building and decorating business established by his grandfather. Such hopes ended with his death of typhoid in Argentina in 1896. Not long after, on 24 June 1897, the family head John Whistler, aged 66, passed away at Sherborne St John (3). He died two days after Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee parade that marked 60 years of her reign.

Henry, who returned to England after his brother’s death, succeeded as the manager of the family firm. However, the decision was made to sell the Sherborne St John business; in September 1897 the Hants & Berks Gazette printed a notice of an auction of building supplies belonging to the Whistler enterprise (4).

In 1898 Henry was living in London at Camden Square, Camden Town (5); not far from Camden Street where, as a young boy, he may have visited his maternal grandmother Ann Warhurst.

Henry’s betrothed Helen was the daughter of Charles Slegg Ward, the vicar of Wootton St Lawrence, a Hampshire village within walking distance of Sherborne St John. Their wedding at St Luke’s Church, Tavistock Road, Westbourne Park, in west London, on 27 September 1898, was the same wedding day as Henry Whistler’s parents, 38 years earlier (6).

At the start of the new century Henry and Helen Whistler were living in a newly-built home in Chingford Green, a London suburb on the edge of Epping Forest north of Walthamstow (7). In the 1901 census Henry’s profession was described as an ‘Auctioneer & Building Contractor’.

A new opportunity was offered when a builder-and-decorator’s business was advertised for sale in Eltham, south of Greenwich. With financing provided by Lewis Edward Worge (pronounced Werg), a cousin of Helen, Henry Whistler took over the business and moved his family to Eltham. The Eltham business prospered and in 1913 Whistler bought out Worge’s share of the company (8).

The Gate House, Tilt Yard Approach near the site of the medieval Eltham palace gatehouse, built in 1914 by Henry Whistler’s building firm (Eltham Palace Conservation Area, Management Strategy, Greenwich Council pdf file, p. 11).

Photograph © David Anstiss, 18 September 2011, The Geograph Project ).

The luminous careers as artists of Henry’s sons Rex Whistler and Sir Laurence Whistler (awarded a Knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June 2000 for services to arts) have received wide acclaim. For an appreciation of their work other sources should be consulted as a list of references is too numerous to attempt here. In the Second World War Rex Whistler took a commission in the Welsh Guards and, after the D-Day invasion (on 6 June 1944), served as a tank commander in Normandy where he was killed in action on 18 July 1944, aged 39.

William and Kate

Both William and Kate emigrated to Canada with their families in the early 1900s

(see Destination: Western Canada).

Arthur

Arthur Joseph Whistler, born at Sherborne St John on 3 November 1867, trained as a ‘painter & glazier’. On 3 January 1888, aged 20, he enlisted at Basingstoke for a career in the navy with the Portsmouth Division of the Royal Marine Light Infantry based at Forton Barracks in Gosport by Portsmouth Harbour. He was passed for Corporal on 8 March 1889 and Sergeant on 22 December 1892 (9).

Arthur’s bride Rose was the daughter of Henry Howe, a shipwright of Alverstoke, a community in Gosport. At their wedding on 27 December 1897, at St Mary’s Church, Alverstoke, one of the witnesses who signed the marriage register was Arthur’s brother-in-law Charles Portsmouth, the husband of Arthur’s sister Kate (10).

On census day 31 March 1901 Arthur was serving as a Colour Sergeant, the special duty is to attend the regimental colours, on board His Majesty’s Ship Majestic stationed at Gibraltar. The ship’s officers included Vice Admiral Sir Harry Rawson and Captain George Egerton. At home, on Carlyle Road, Alverstoke, Arthur’s wife Rose was caring for their one-year-old daughter Phyllis; while their three-year-old daughter Gladys Rose was staying with her maternal grandparents, Henry and Mary Howe, at 15 Church Road, Alverstoke.

Arthur left the Royal Marines in January 1909, aged 41, to take a position as ‘Hall Keeper & Caretaker’ at the Law Courts in Winchester. It looks like housing was provided with the job as in the 1911 census the family address was The Castle, Winchester.

Ernest Walter

Ernest Walter Whistler and his wife Florence settled in Florence’s hometown of Grantham, Lincolnshire. In the 1901 census newly married Ernest was described as a ‘Wine & Spirit Merchant’. At the census taken on Sunday 2 April 1911 Ernest was away on a business trip in Leicester working as a typewriter salesman. At home in Grantham Florence, with son Harold and daughters Doris and Vera, was living with her parents Henry and Elizabeth Richardson.

Just one year later, while on business in Wolverhampton, Ernest Walter Whistler fell ill with pneumonia and died on 4 May 1912, aged 35. He was buried four days later at the cemetery in Grantham (11).

Harold, the son of Ernest and Florence Whistler, was born in 1901. Possibly this was the same Harold Whistler who was an active member of the Newark Golf Club in Newark, Nottinghamshire, a short distance north-west of Grantham. In 1958 Harold Whistler, as Captain of the club, presented the club with a flag and a flag pole. In August of that year Captain’s Day had to be postponed for a month as heavy rain had flooded the golf course (12).

Fred and Emmeline

Fred Whistler, like his brother William, studied for the teaching profession and became a school teacher in Jersey, Channel Islands. His son Hector Whistler trained as an artist and after the war settled in the West Indies.

Emmeline (Lena) Whistler with her husband Henry L’Amy ran a farm called Les Arches near Le Hocq on the Island of Jersey. It appears that Lena became the caregiver of her mother Sarah Ann Whistler who, in the 1911 census, was living with the L’Amys in Jersey. The will of Sarah Ann Whistler was probated in Jersey on 15 September 1937.

In the war Jersey was invaded and occupied by German forces for a long and bleak five years from June 1940 until the liberation in May 1945. Lena’s brother Fred died in early 1943 (13).

Lena’s son Henry Vernon L’Amy, a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force, served in the Allied campaign in North-West Africa where he was killed on 28 August 1944, only six weeks after the death of his cousin Rex Whistler. He was buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission plot in Morocco (14).

After the war Lena and her family moved to South Africa. She outlived all her brothers and sisters by a considerable number of years. A letter from Lena to her nephew Harold Whistler, the son of William, dated 18 April 1962 was posted to Vancouver, Canada from 29 Fitzroy Street, Grahamstown, South Africa. She says ‘I shall be 88 years of age next Jan’ (15).

Selected References

Laurence Whistler, The Laughter and the Urn, The Life of Rex Whistler, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985.

Jenny Spencer-Smith, Rex Whistler’s War : 1939July 1944 Artist into Tank Commander (with a foreword by Laurence Whistler), Catalogue to the 1994 Special Exhibition of Rex Whistler’s work at the National Army Museum, London.

Sir Laurence Whistler, obituary from The Daily Telegraph.

Notes

(1) Laurence Whistler, The Laughter and the Urn, pp. 6–7.

A list of the British-owned railway companies is given in Colin M. Lewis, British railways in Argentina, 1857–1914: a case study of foreign investment, University of London, 1983, pp. 222–3. Another study about the Argentine railways is Winthrop R. Wright, British-owned railways in Argentina: their effect on economic nationalism, 1854–1948, The University of Texas Press, Austin, 1974.

(2) Transcribed marriages online at the British Settlers in Argentina website.

(3) On the death certificate of John Whistler of Sherborne St John dated June 1897, copy ordered from the General Register Office, he was described as a ‘plumber and builder, retired’.

(4) Laurence Whistler, The Laughter and the Urn, pp. 7 & 10. Jane Shelvey of the Sherborne St John Village History Group very kindly provided transcripts of newspaper notices from the Hants & Berks Gazette (later the Basingstoke Gazette and now the Gazette).

(5) The Camden Square address was given on Henry Whistler’s marriage certificate (accessed at London Parish Records, Ancestry website).

(6) St Luke’s Church was demolished post World War Two.

(7) Laurence Whistler, The Laughter and the Urn, p. 12.

(8) Laurence Whistler, The Laughter and the Urn, pp. 12-3. On 11 April 1913 a notice was printed in the London Gazette that Henry Whistler was now the sole owner of the firm Whistler and Worge located at 80 High Street, Eltham (London Gazette online archive).

(9) Royal Marines service record for Arthur Joseph Whistler obtained from The National Archives online catalogue reference ADM 159/7/295 (Admiralty: Royal Marines: Registers of Service). His service record noted that his height was about 5 feet 11 inches and he was a capable swimmer.

(10) Copy of marriage certificate ordered from the General Register Office.

(11) Copy of death certificate ordered from the General Register Office gave the information that Ernest Walter Whistler, aged 35, was a ‘commercial traveller (export trade)’ of 57 Westgate, Grantham, lodging at 1 Pipers Row, Wolverhampton. The burial on 8 May 1912, at the Grantham Cemetery, was recorded in the National Burial Index prepared by the Federation of Family History Societies.

(12) Webpage: history of the Newark Golf Club .

(13) The will of Frederick Herbert Whistler, 2 St Clements Gardens, St Clement, was probated in Jersey on 2 April 1943 (website: Jersey Heritage archives online).

(14) Website: Commonwealth War Graves Commission .

(15) Copy of family letter.

Copyright © Diana Whistler

All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer