Update: As of 21 August 2025, I’m thrilled to tell you this whole collection is now in the very safe hands of a lady and her family who are descendants📚

Chapter 11

Tying up loose ends.

I’m starting this Chapter with a lady who I really think looks rather nice, but I haven’t got a clue where she fits in with the family, if at all. It says on the back ‘Caroline Wyatt 1883‘ Despite having over 1500 people among most of the branches of the family tree I still haven’t come across the lady, so if anyone can help with her I would be very grateful.

As the photo of Caroline is dated 1883, I did look for possibilities on the 1881 census, and Caroline Wyatt, the mother in this family, was just one of the possibilities I came across while trying to find a connection to the family. As you can see, Caroline’s husband Walter is a Surgeon-Dentist.

She could have been just a friend and not family.

Family

This next young man is named Herbert SHEPPARD (1866-1957) who was born in October 1866 in London, his parents were George Sheppard and Maria Wales (Wainwright). He is a very important part of the family as he married Mary Florence BROMLEY (1865-1939) on 17 January 1899 at St John the Evangelist, Lambeth in Surrey. These are two of Herberts’ entries in the Crockford Directories for him. This helps tie him in nicely with the dates on his family tree and where he was living and working as a Reverend.

I was also fascinated to see a connection to St Thomas’s Hospital in the records above, as back in Chapter 6. Wainwright and Ling families I found that Dr William Longworth Wainwright (1868-1956) was a surgeon at St Thomas Hospital and before him, his father Sir James Gadesden Wainwright (1837–1929) was a governor, almoner and treasurer of St Thomas Hospital.

Note. See previous Chapters 2 and 3 for more about the Bromley family.

Herbert and Mary had three children, Illtyd SHEPPARD was the eldest and their only son, born in 1900 in Bettws Newydd, Monmouthshire. Illtyd never married and he tragically died on 3 January 1921 at the age of 20. He was buried in Baghdad, Mesopotamia, Iraq. Illtyd was a Second Lieutenant in the 1/15th Ludhiana Sikhs. I know his regiment was sent to Mesopotamia in August 1920 but I am unable to find out what happened to cause his death, as you can see from the following records I have found, he was serving as a Second Lieutenant in Baghdad/Mesopotamia at the time of his death. However, I have found this that I am unable to confirm: “His service included action in several theatres, including Mesopotamia. After the war, he remained with his regiment, which was stationed in India. His death on January 3, 1921, is recorded as a result of a tragic accident while he was on duty. Sources suggest that he died after an accidental gun discharge or mishap during routine activities with his regiment in the Punjab region. Specific details can be difficult to verify, but it was not a death in combat but rather an accidental fatality while still in service“.

The first record below was just one page of the 15th Sikhs War Diary that can be downloaded from the National Archives for free after registration.

More here about the Regiment the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs and excellent advice on how to research Indian Armies: Researching Indian Soldiers WW1

Herbert and Mary‘s second child was a daughter, Iris Wales SHEPPARD who was born on 2 January 1902. She married Edward Desmond WAINWRIGHT in April 1928 in Wantage, Berkshire. They had two children during their marriage, a son Martyn Desmond Gadesden WAINWRIGHT (1929-2022) I was unable to find a marriage for Martyn but very kindly a relative to the family has been in touch and told me that Martyn married in 1964 to Hazel Vivienne Rosemary Larkman and the couple had three children and five Grandchildren. Their second child was a daughter Damaris Rosemary Clayton WAINWRIGHT (1932-2012) Damaris married Rev Guy Richard Kindersley MOULE on 7 April 1956, they had three children. I love the use of the name Damaris previously found twice among their ancestors.

I found Edward and Iris on the passenger lists for 1936, see below, they were bound for India and came back on the return from Australia, I wondered if they visited Iris’s brother’s resting place.

Iris Wales Wainwright (SHEPPARD) died on 19 May 1959 in Hampshire at the age of 57 and was buried in the graveyard of St Catherine’s by the Sea, Holworth, near Weymouth, Dorset. Her husband Edward Desmond WAINWRIGHT died in February 1976 in Girton, Cambridgeshire, he was buried/cremated there but is remembered with Iris on the gravestone at St Catherine’s by the Sea in Dorset.

The youngest child was Mary Wales SHEPPARD who was born on 1 September 1904. I’ve not managed to find out a lot about Mary, apart from the fact that she never married and on the 1939 Register she was living with her sister Iris and her husband Edward at The Balsams, Standon, Ware, Hertfordshire. For her Occupation, it says ‘Independent Means’

Mary died on 14 February 1989 in Dewlish, Dorset, at the age of 84, and was buried there.

This next lady is also named and as with many of the old photos in this collection, it has extra information on the back. So it actually says “Maria Sheppard nee Newson the wife of George Sheppard of Great Bealings, Suffolk” She is the mother of the previous young man Herbert Sheppard.

Maria Wales NEWSON was born on 1 December 1825 in Pimlico, Middlesex, her parents were John Newson and Maria (Bloomfield). She married George SHEPPARD on 8 May 1850. She died on 27 July 1896 at the age of 70.

Maria and George Sheppard had ten children.

Maria the eldest daughter married Robert William Hall who was a Farmer in Herefordshire.

George was just a child when he died.

Elizabeth is a mystery as I am unable to confirm any more about her as there are too many possible Elizabeth Sheppards, so I would need to get certificates.

Newson married Clara Blofield Walker in 1897 and they emigrated fairly soon after to Auckland, New Zealand.

Frank who was born in 1857 is another child that I would need certificates to confirm more information about, after the census of 1871.

Bloomfield a daughter born in the first quarter of 1859, sadly died at the young age of 27, having never married.

Ernest was born in London in the first quarter of 1860 and I couldn’t find him on any census after 1891 when he was with his new wife Margaret Hill (Stewart)living in Richmond, London, Ernest was a Surveyor. So I searched records for outside the UK. They had four sons between 1892 and 1897 in England, the youngest born in December 1897. After which they emigrated to South Africa and very sadly Margaret died of TB on 16 April 1898 when she was 35. Ernest stayed and died there in 1937, he was a Farmer and a widower living in Sheppardvale, Thaba Nchu, South Africa.

Three of the boys, Ernest, Norman and Newson stayed in South Africa but one Mervyn Wellasley Stewart SHEPPARD came back to the UK in 1924 arriving at Southampton on 3rd November and creating a huge mystery. The following newspaper account was in the Lancashire Evening Post on 22 December 1925.

As you can see Rev Herbert Sheppard, Ernest’s brother, who himself had lost a son in 1921 tried to help to find out more information about his nephew’s death. There were more newspaper reports regarding Mervyn. Apparently, he was engaged to a Miss J M Jackson in Pietermaritzburg and letters written to her from Mervyn in August and September were ‘all peculiar’. Mervyn was worried over his failure to pass an exam for a higher veterinary degree, after a year-long course at Edinburgh University. It was believed that he intended to disappear and that he had been over-studying in the past year before his death. His fiance and her family thought that he was mentally unbalanced at the time of his death. This is just part of what Rev Herbert Sheppard had to say, there was a full account in another newspaper.

Annie was born in 1862, as with Frank, I would need certificates to confirm more information about what happened to her after 1871.

Gertrude was born in 1863, I have her in the 1881 census living and in 1901 living in Bettws Newydd, Abergavenny, Wales with her brother Herbert and his wife Mary and their 9-month-old son Illtyd. After this, I’m not sure.

In 1871 Father George, his wife Maria with two of the children Bloomfield and Herbert at their London residence in Hanover Square.

Herbert the youngest, you know about already from earlier in this blog.

Two unknown Carte De Visites, one maybe family and one a friend.

Info from followers on my Facebook page re the uniform of this unnamed Soldier: Likely a Hussars uniform. I suspect from the tunic and busby details that it is probably the 10th Hussars. (Dark plume, style of cross belt, and busby line crossing body).

Edward Wainwright❤️Iris Wales Sheppard

So now I am on this last Chapter of this wonderful Holworth Collection with the few old photos that I have left and the reveal of our couple. You have read a little about them already in this blog. Isn’t it amazing to have such a wonderful collection from both sides of the families of one couple, I am still baffled as to how this beautiful collection ended up out of the family.

When I finished writing Chapter 1 back in July 2023 I didn’t quite realise the major task I had before me when I first started my research. But I am thrilled to have finally completed this family’s history for you all to read.

I have an awful lot of people on the tree now. Some married their cousins, had second marriages etc and lots have used the same names for their offspring in the same families. There were also some surname changes along the way. They’ve not made it easy but I did it.

You can now look at the family tree I created to go with this collection of old photos as I’ve made it public:

Holworth Photos Collection Family Tree

All the different families that I’ve written about, lead to Iris and Edward who are both descended from these families. It is quite extraordinary to find such a collection of wonderful old photos, with so many named and still together from both sides of a couple’s family tree.

My husband and I had a super research trip back in 2023, it was good to visit the small church of St Catherines by the Sea near Ringstead Bay, Dorset, where Iris and her husband Edward are remembered (large dark flat stone) as the descendants of all the families in the Holworth Collection. Great views from their resting place.

We parked at the top of the National Trust car park for Rinstead Bay and walked down to the Church.

With this collection also comes over 30 slightly more contemporary photos, most of these also have writing on the back.

You will be pleased to know that I am in touch with a couple of descendants of this family who I know would love to become custodians of this amazing collection now that I have finished my research.

The End

Till next time then……