From South Street and into Derby Road, Adeline thinks that “first came Wheeldon’s property, Wheeldons lived in these cottages.”
Born about 1785, tailor Samuel Wheeldon married Sarah Hunt on October 14th, 1805 (just a week before the battle of Trafalgar) and thereafter raised a family of four children, two others dying very young.
Nottingham Review (October 15th, 1830)
Samuel had only a few years of blessed pain relief … he died in June 1833.
We have walked around the corner from South Street and into Derby Road. In 1871 the Wheeldon family was at number 51.
Lacemaker William Wheeldon was a son of tailor Samuel and Sarah, while Mary Birkin was a daughter of James, framework knitter of Kimberley, and Elizabeth (nee Fulwood). The pair had married on January 26th, 1834 and spent most of their early married life in Kimberley but returned to the Oxford Street area of Ilkeston in the mid 1850’s.
The Wheeldon family mentioned by Adeline was probably that of lacemaker Amos, the eldest son of William and Mary and son-in-law to William Sanders the second whom we have just met.
Amos married Sarah Sanders in September 1856 and for a time they lived in Nottingham Road.
Eventually, in the early 1860’s, they moved into the house previously occupied by Sarah’s parents, who by this time had both died.
The children of Amos and Sarah were William George (1858), Lucy Sargeant (1861), James Sanders (1863), Jane Paradise (1863) and Harriet (1869).
Two other children, Sarah Ann (1872) and John (1874), died of scarlet fever during an outbreak of the disease in 1875.
For the rest of his life Amos couldn’t drag himself from Derby Road and died at number 63 in May 1896, aged 61.
His widow Sarah also died there on New Year’s Day 1908, aged 72.
And close by, across the road and near the Three Horse Shoes, at number 4, was their eldest son William George.
Here we see the demolition of the cottages, just started in 1933. (courtesy of Ilkeston Library)
Son William George Wheeldon was born on April 10th 1858 and married Mary Elizabeth Martin on August 6th 1863. His bride was the daughter of Philip and Eliza (nee White). In April 1887 he commenced a business as a milanese lace manufacturer in Albert Street, in partnership with Messrs Bloor and Shaw, two fellow workmen. They each provided equal shares in purchasing a machine for £201 (William George’s share coming from a loan by his wife). This partnership lasted just one year before it was dissolved by mutual consent in April 1888. Having bought the company machine from his two ex-partners, thereafter William George traded alone and at times he had to borrow money from his mother from whom he rented his Albert Street factory. By 1892 he owed mother Sarah nearly £180 and she was fed up with waiting for him to pay her back … so she sued and obtained judgment. William George was thus forced to sell almost all his machinery.
By the end of November 1894 William George was facing his creditors at the Offices of the Official Receiver in Derby … with assets of £10 and net debts of nearly £450. … but with no books of account !! There had been no trade to ‘account‘ !!! ‘Bad trade’ had meant that he just couldn’t get sufficient work. And all his household furniture was now claimed by his relatives.
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And next to the Wheeldon household was Chain Row.
