Wimbish Scenes

Wimbish Lives and Scenes
These are pictures that I have of Wimbish, a small village in Essex where my Paternal forebears, surname Barker, lived for a number of generations. I stopped my family history research rwenty years ago but have retained the information I gained and display some of it here. I still retain an interest, however, so If anyone has any information about the scenes or people in the pictures, about Wimbish or the Barker families of the village, or has additional pictures they could share with me, or any other related comments they would like to make, I would be delighted to hear from them via the email link here. Contact Author.
Before showing pictures of Wimbish let me start with three forebears of mine of whom I have pictures and who were Wimbish residents.
1	2	3
Mary or Mary-Ann Barker aged around 35. Mary-Ann was born between 1806 and 1811. Picture taken c1860. Her husband was James Barker, b.4.5.1806 d.18.9.1886	Mary-Ann's daughter, Anne Barker, aged about 16 - 18. Anne was born 1842. Picture taken c1860	John Barker, daughter of Anne and born when she was 14. John was my maternal great grandfather.
AND HERE'S HOW THEY RELATE TO ME

Mary-Ann, Anne and John would have known these scenes of Wimbish

4		5
The White Hart, still a public house today		Howlett End. In 1981 George Ingram, a distant relative of mine, identified the lady at the gate as Kate Buck of the Post Office, and the man in the cart as Mr Stone, the local baker.

6		7
Mill Road - you can see Vine Cottage behind the man on the left. This looks as though it was taken from roughly the same spot as the picture of Vine Cottage in 1930 (picture 17 below).		When members of the Portway family lived there in the early 20th century these houses were known as Collier Row. They were also known as Westley Terrace (being next to Westley Farm), and (for obvious reasons) Mill Road Cottages.

8		9and 10
The Star Inn, now a private house		Wimbish windmill and Thundersly Church

11		12
New House Farm		Threshing at New House Farm c1890

13		14
Frank Buck was ran the local shop and Post Office, outside which . Arthur Gibbs, the man minding the pram, is standing. The baby in the pram is possibly Rosie Burrows (see picture 20)		The family story is that John Barker (picture 3) was the result of a union between a 14-year old Anne Barker and someone named Saville at a house where she was in service. John was given his mother's surname while she met and married William Chapman. Here Anne and William are pictured together when they were around 16 years of age in 1858

15	16	17
Anne and William c1900. Then then lived at Vine Cottage in Mill Road. The vine that once flourished on the south end can be clearly seen.	Vine Cottage 1926	Vine Cottage, Mill Road, 1930
18	19	20
Vine Cottage, Mill Road, 1955	Vine Cottage, Mill Road, 1980	Church bell, Wimbish
Vine Cottage was originally two tenements, one at first occupied by Anne and William Chapman and later fully occupied by them. Before the water tower was erected in the 1940s water came from wells or the village pump. When the 1980 picture was taken the cottage was being re-thatched by a Pole, who said previous re-thatchings had been done one on top of each other for many years.
21
Jesse Portway and wife. Jesse was born in 1863 in Radwinter to Charles and Mary Portway. They had a family of children, Joseph b1861, Jesse 1863, Cecilia 1870, Winfred 1877, and William (age not given). His father Charles was a bricklayer.

Of course the Chapmans had children of their own but it was John Barker, Anne's first child, who was my forebear. Quite a character, he would have known a great many Wimbish people, including those referred to by his mother in a letter written just before she died on the 9th December 1904. She refers to a 'Boy Portway', probably the son of a Mrs Portway who was known by another relative of mine who visited Wimbish in the 1920s and earlier. She also refers to 'Bet' and 'Suddy', who were Mr and Mrs Marshall who farmed 'The Maypole', a place where William Chapman was working when aged 63 and feared being 'put off' because it was a very bad year for corn. Lizzie Chapman was one of Anne and William's daughters. She went away in service but returned to look after her parents in their old age but died before her father in 1930. He died on the 18th January 1931. If all this seems a bit vague then it is because I have been to Wimbish only once, in 1980.


An Email from Jacquline Harrup corrected an error in identification I made in the caption (now corrected) to picture 13 above. Her mother, who was born and bred in Wimbish, identified the baby in the pram as Rosie Burrows. They also sent the pictures below.
22		23
The girl on the left is Jacqueline's mother, Bessie Franklin; the baby in the pram is Rosie Burrows, and the girl on the right is Rosie's sister Christine. Jacqueline's mother was born in 1920 so the picture would have been taken around 1930.		The water cart visiting the village during a drought c1933. The people are (from left to right) Joe Moule, Mrs.Cornell (with bucket), her daughter Mary Cornell, my maternal grandmother Fanny Franklin (nee Portway), Alice Portway (in black), Mrs.Rosie Smithers, Eileen Taylor (with woolly hat), William Raven (bending down), Mrs.Eliza Moule (carrying bucket), and three children - one of whom was Maurice Taylor, son of Ben Taylor, and another was probably Ron Smith.

Jacqueline's mother also said that Kate Buck (in picture 5) was the sister of Frank Buck (referred to in picture 13). Frank also had a brother Herbert who married late in life, and another brother who's name her mother can't remember (a rare lapse of memory!). Photo no.5 was taken before her mother's time (she was born in 1920), and she had never heard of Mr.Stone the baker. She seems to think the man wearing a white apron could be Ben Buck, father of Frank, and the man on the right could be postman Sid Coe.
Grateful thanks to Jacqueline Harrup and her mother for the pictures and information.

If anyone else has any information about the scenes or people depicted on this page, or about Wimbish or the Barker families of the village, or has additional pictures they could share with me, or has any other related comments they would like to make, I would be delighted to hear from them via the email link here. Alan Moore Contact Author.