This is the record of the death of William Wagstaff, the father of Mary Ann Wagstaff Millington, Henry Wagstaff, etal.
XVIII. Death of William Wagstaff
STRANGE DEATH
On Wednesday night between ten and eleven, William Wagstaff, market gardener of Lower Caldecote, and his two sons went to the Grange to clear out a closet. When they had loaded the cart with the first load they went away to empty it and were absent about a quarter of an hour. On their return hey found their father at the bottom of the closet quite dead.
How he got in they were not able to say as he was left all alone. The hold is about three feet deep.
The Bedford Mercury, Sat. 19th January 1878 under Northill.
DEATH FROM SUFFOCATION
On Friday last, January 18th an inquest was held at the King's head public house before M. Piper, Deputy Coroner, on view of the body of William Wagstaff, aged 52 years, a notice of whose death appeared in our last. Arthur Wagstaff on being sworn said, "I live at Lower Caldecote in the parish of Northill. My father was a Market Gardener. On Wednesday night my father and my brother went to clean a cesspool out at the grange. We started at five minutes to ten. When we got there we began to fill two tubs. When we had filled them my brother and I went away to empty them in a field about a quarter of a mile off. When we got back we missed father. My brother called out to him but could not make him hear. We looked into the cesspool and found him with his head under the stuff. We could see his back; we lifted him out. He was quite dead. The stuff was four feet deep after we had taken a load away. My father was perfectly sober when we left him."
Francis Young said, "I am a surgeon practicing at Biggleswade. I was called to the deceased on Wednesday night last. I got to the Grange about ten minutes past eleven. I found him quite dead. He had evidently been suffocated."
The jury recorded a verdict of Accidentally suffocated by falling into a cesspool.
The Bedford Mercury, Sat. 2nd Jan. 1878, under Lower Caldecote.
Here are two newspaper reports on the death of William Wagstaff. The "other brother" was my grandfather Henry. Somewhere I have another article that show him by name.
Henry's children didn't know anything about this. They sensed that there was something unusual about him and my mother thought that he had probably committed suicide.
It must have made such an impact on Grandpa that he never would talk about it.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Otago Witness , Issue 2768, 3 April 1907, Page 22
The Witness began in Dunedin in January 1851 as a four page, fortnightly newspaper. It became a weekly in August that year. At this time illustrated weekly newspapers were a popular and important form of publication in New Zealand and the paper continued to be published until 1932.
LOVE AND FORTUNE.
ROMANTIC WILL CASE. LONDON, March 27. Mr Justice Kekewich has given judgment in favour of Mrs Jalland under Wagstaffs will. Mrs Jalland was convicted of bigamy in January last. An absorbing drama of love and fortune lies behind a charge of bigamy preferred against a wealthy woman named Dorothy Josephine Wagstaff of Elm plaoe, Kensington, and Manor Park, Potton, Bedfordshire, who was remanded at the West London Police Court on November 20. This lady astonished the officer in chage at the Kensington Police Station, High street, by walking in, accompanied by her private secretary, and calmly stating that she wished to give herself up for bigamy. To the officer she said: ''My second hueband, who is now dead, knew my first husband very well, and knew that he was alive. He persuaded me to do it." Mrs Wagbtaff is 45 years of age, and her action in surrendering herself on the present charge hinged on a lawsuit pending in the courts respecting the will of Mr Wagstaff, who died some time ago. Her father was an Indian officer, but her upbringing was left to friends in Dublin.' Whan a little, over 20 she met a medical student, Alfred Gibson Jalland, to whom, in 1884 she was married at All Saints' Church, Manchester. This marriage apparently was not a happy one, and the wife resolved to earn her own living, becoming; a nurse and gradually working her way up to the position of matron. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, as the result of a romantic meeting in the West End, an acquaintanceship sprang up between the pretty Irish nurse and Mr James Poole Wagstaff, a wealthy London landowner, and ultimately the couple went through the form of marriage at St. George's Church, Hanover square. Mr Wagstaff was then 50 years of age, a Fellow of the Geographical Society, deputy-lieutenant and sheriff of the county of Bedfordshire, and a justice of the peace. From his father, Mr James Wagstaff, who died in 1874, he had inherited a fortune of £170,000, which he himself by judicious investments increased. His town house was Grandsen Lodge, Highbury, now the electric railway station, and his country residence Manor Park, Potton, Sandy, Bedfordshire. Dying in 1903, he left estate sworn at £174,722, and probate of his will dated March 31, 1897, was granted in October, 1903, to his widow, Mrs Dorothy Josephine Wagstaff to whom practically the property was left in trust during her widowhood, the property then to revert to the children of his cousins, John and William Hardwood Wagstaff. The former nurse now found herself in possession of an income of between £10,000 and £12,000, and proceeded to act as a fairy godmother to the poor of the neighbourhood. For three years she enjoyed this income and took her place as lady of the manor. But all this time she was aware that her first husband was alive; the secret leaked out in the village, and finally reached the ears of persons interested in the estate. An action at law was commenced by Mr Berners Shelley Wagstaff, of Highbury Lodge, Highbury, eldest son of the testator's cousin, John Wagstaff, who claims the estate on the simple grounds that, as the then holder of the property, Mrs Dorothy Josephine Wagstaff had committed bigamy, who had never been a wife, and consequently could not be the widow of the testator, and that, therefore, she was not entitled to the property, which under the terms of the will ought to pass to him, being the issue of the cousin John Wagstaff. On November 5 the grant of probate of the will was revoked, and Mrs Wagstaff found herself merely in possession of a sufferance allowance of £500 a year pending the trial of the action. She defended her claim to the property by urging that the fact of her first husband being alive at the time of her second marriage was known to tho testator, who himself persuaded her to commit bigamy.
The Witness began in Dunedin in January 1851 as a four page, fortnightly newspaper. It became a weekly in August that year. At this time illustrated weekly newspapers were a popular and important form of publication in New Zealand and the paper continued to be published until 1932.
LOVE AND FORTUNE.
ROMANTIC WILL CASE. LONDON, March 27. Mr Justice Kekewich has given judgment in favour of Mrs Jalland under Wagstaffs will. Mrs Jalland was convicted of bigamy in January last. An absorbing drama of love and fortune lies behind a charge of bigamy preferred against a wealthy woman named Dorothy Josephine Wagstaff of Elm plaoe, Kensington, and Manor Park, Potton, Bedfordshire, who was remanded at the West London Police Court on November 20. This lady astonished the officer in chage at the Kensington Police Station, High street, by walking in, accompanied by her private secretary, and calmly stating that she wished to give herself up for bigamy. To the officer she said: ''My second hueband, who is now dead, knew my first husband very well, and knew that he was alive. He persuaded me to do it." Mrs Wagbtaff is 45 years of age, and her action in surrendering herself on the present charge hinged on a lawsuit pending in the courts respecting the will of Mr Wagstaff, who died some time ago. Her father was an Indian officer, but her upbringing was left to friends in Dublin.' Whan a little, over 20 she met a medical student, Alfred Gibson Jalland, to whom, in 1884 she was married at All Saints' Church, Manchester. This marriage apparently was not a happy one, and the wife resolved to earn her own living, becoming; a nurse and gradually working her way up to the position of matron. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, as the result of a romantic meeting in the West End, an acquaintanceship sprang up between the pretty Irish nurse and Mr James Poole Wagstaff, a wealthy London landowner, and ultimately the couple went through the form of marriage at St. George's Church, Hanover square. Mr Wagstaff was then 50 years of age, a Fellow of the Geographical Society, deputy-lieutenant and sheriff of the county of Bedfordshire, and a justice of the peace. From his father, Mr James Wagstaff, who died in 1874, he had inherited a fortune of £170,000, which he himself by judicious investments increased. His town house was Grandsen Lodge, Highbury, now the electric railway station, and his country residence Manor Park, Potton, Sandy, Bedfordshire. Dying in 1903, he left estate sworn at £174,722, and probate of his will dated March 31, 1897, was granted in October, 1903, to his widow, Mrs Dorothy Josephine Wagstaff to whom practically the property was left in trust during her widowhood, the property then to revert to the children of his cousins, John and William Hardwood Wagstaff. The former nurse now found herself in possession of an income of between £10,000 and £12,000, and proceeded to act as a fairy godmother to the poor of the neighbourhood. For three years she enjoyed this income and took her place as lady of the manor. But all this time she was aware that her first husband was alive; the secret leaked out in the village, and finally reached the ears of persons interested in the estate. An action at law was commenced by Mr Berners Shelley Wagstaff, of Highbury Lodge, Highbury, eldest son of the testator's cousin, John Wagstaff, who claims the estate on the simple grounds that, as the then holder of the property, Mrs Dorothy Josephine Wagstaff had committed bigamy, who had never been a wife, and consequently could not be the widow of the testator, and that, therefore, she was not entitled to the property, which under the terms of the will ought to pass to him, being the issue of the cousin John Wagstaff. On November 5 the grant of probate of the will was revoked, and Mrs Wagstaff found herself merely in possession of a sufferance allowance of £500 a year pending the trial of the action. She defended her claim to the property by urging that the fact of her first husband being alive at the time of her second marriage was known to tho testator, who himself persuaded her to commit bigamy.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
1. This blog was started in May 2010.
2. Addition branches of the family have been found.
a. Mary Ann Bullock Wagstaff had a sister, Elizabeth Wagstaff Shupe, who migrated before her and settled in the area of Ogden, Utah.
b. Marie Loveridge who married James Sheen was the daughter of Sarah Wagstaff and grandaughter of John Wagstaff and Elizabeth Larkins. The Sheens settled in Smithfield, Utah and their descendents spread out, e. g., Kaysville and Salem.
c. John Wagstaff married Sarah Ann Molyneux (previously married to Willam Shaw) of Evanston Wyoming in 1909 in Croydon. He was born in Lancashire, England in 1839. He seems to be another branch.
3. We have made several trips to local cemeteries in Utah and Wyoming. We have photographed several hundred headstones. Eventually they will be put up on Find a Grave.
4. I am trying to follow up on info from Willis Peterson about the Bedforshire Wagstaff descendant who was a sculpture and moved to China. He had two sons who died in WWII in the Orient. Anyone have more info? I got a little further info that his son was killed in the British defense of Hong Kong against the Japanese.
5. I am putting hundreds of images into my RootsMagic and hope to have post them here in this blog.
2. Addition branches of the family have been found.
a. Mary Ann Bullock Wagstaff had a sister, Elizabeth Wagstaff Shupe, who migrated before her and settled in the area of Ogden, Utah.
b. Marie Loveridge who married James Sheen was the daughter of Sarah Wagstaff and grandaughter of John Wagstaff and Elizabeth Larkins. The Sheens settled in Smithfield, Utah and their descendents spread out, e. g., Kaysville and Salem.
c. John Wagstaff married Sarah Ann Molyneux (previously married to Willam Shaw) of Evanston Wyoming in 1909 in Croydon. He was born in Lancashire, England in 1839. He seems to be another branch.
3. We have made several trips to local cemeteries in Utah and Wyoming. We have photographed several hundred headstones. Eventually they will be put up on Find a Grave.
4. I am trying to follow up on info from Willis Peterson about the Bedforshire Wagstaff descendant who was a sculpture and moved to China. He had two sons who died in WWII in the Orient. Anyone have more info? I got a little further info that his son was killed in the British defense of Hong Kong against the Japanese.
5. I am putting hundreds of images into my RootsMagic and hope to have post them here in this blog.
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