DANIEL, CLARKE, ANDREWS, CROISSETTE, WOHLMANN, WOODRUFF & RELATED FAMILIES
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William's birth was registered on 18th March, 1872 in the Registration District of Towcester,
Sub-district Abthorpe in the County of Northampton. It is not, as at May 2003, recorded on
the FreeBMD website. The home address was merely given as Whittlebury, a village near Silverstone.
To see the church: Revd Canon Bridget Smith - Parish Priest, The Vicarage, 24A, High Street,
Silverstone, NN12 8US, Tel: 01327-857996, e-mail: bridget @ abthorpechurch.org.uk No evidence has been uncovered through research as to where exactly the family were staying and why they might have been in the area, although the birth certificate claims that his father was working as a school teacher. The child was given only William as a forename and described as 'Boy' son of Edwin Daniel, Schoolmaster, and Eliza Daniel, formerly Clarke. Eliza registered him herself. The parish register shows him baptised in Silverstone, rather than Whittlebury, although the churches were linked. William appears in the 1881 census at Elly Clough House, Royton, with most of the Daniel family except for Fred who was living with an aunt in Nottingham and Edwin who was at the Drapers' Company boarding school in London. The family house in Royton is still standing as the Greyhound pub, combined with two cottages. Shortly before the birth of his own first son William (Billy or Willy), he was admitted by Patrimony on 20th April 1898 to the Drapers' Company, an ancient Guild of the City of London. According to their archivist, this had been arranged for 19th November 1897 with his father and Joseph Daniel, his cousin, standing in testimony to his application to the Freedom. Presumably the event was cancelled because Joseph was unable to attend. Maybe he died. He was replaced in April 1898 by Thomas Cooper Lodge. In 1891, William is to be found at 53 Chiswell Street, East Finsbury, St Luke, in a household comprising Bernard Arnold, Watchmaker and Jeweller, a naturalised German from Berlin, his wife and two children, a house servant, and William working alongside his son as a 'Watchmaker Assistant'. There appeared at first to be no record of William in the online 1901 census until the name 'David' was tried as a surname. This uncovered the family, all four of them -- William, Annie, William Jnr and Kathleen -- at Acton, Borough of Ealing, at a 'watchmaker's shop', address 1 Nemoure Road (mistranscribed as Nemorne). There, William is described as having been born at Whittlebury, Northants. The error in surname has been corrected. William was not a successful businessman, and his son Trevor Daniel was still discharging his debts while he was raising his own family. Outstanding debts were for the schooling of William's daughters, Kathleen and Christine, Trevor's sisters. There is a touching card from Trevor to his sisters at a convent school -- presumably the school where the debt was run up. William was in the Army reserve, hence military uniform in which he was photographed in Penang. There he ran a hotel, perhaps again unsuccessfully, although his return to England was more likely to have been precipitated by anxiety about WWI and the unrest in the Far East. William had a heart attack on the way to visit Trevor Daniel and Nell, and their new baby twin girls, who were born 10 June 1935 in Hillingdon, Middlesex. His death certificate, dated 17th June 1935, shows that he died in Combwich (pronounced Cummidge) of the effects of this heart attack. The informant was F. T. Daniel, son, 'Present at the death.' Trevor's address is given as 112 West Drayton Road, Hillingdon. Presumably he took his father back to Somerset where he died in Trevor's presence. The cause of death is given as 'Acute Dilatation of the Heart. No PM. Certified by P. Hallam, M.B.' William is said to have been buried in a pauper's grave, ie without headstone. William was 63 years old and described as an 'Optician'. Combwich was in Otterhampton Rural District, Somerset. A rather glum photograph of William was taken 1895-98 by F W Wood, Edgware Road. He would have been 23-25. |