Eliza Wilks

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Wilks was a name that was familar to me, could Eliza be related to a famous Ashfordian? Eliza had quite a life, as you will see…

Eliza’s name stood out when I saw it. I have noticed there are quite a few Eliza’s in St Mary’s, it was a popular name. But her surname, Wilks, was what caught my eye. Could she be a relative of the ‘Doctor Wilks’ whose name adorns the Ashford Museum building?

Eliza was born on 8th August, 1815 to Thomas Prescot Wilks, an Apothecary and his wife Mary. She was baptised at St Peter and St Paul church in Charing on 22nd September 1815 and was younger sister to George Frederick, Jane and Henry and older sister to Edward and Francis. It is worth noting at this stage that George Frederick followed in his Father’s shoes and is later shown as a GP living in North Street, Ashford.

Eliza was different to many of the searches I have carried out on people in St Mary’s graveyard. My experience has been that you can search within five miles of where most people were born for all of their records. Eliza proved to have moved around somewhat, for example…

1841 Census
This shows Eliza, now 30, as a Schoolmistress at a school in White Hart Lane, Edmonton, Tottenham, London. It doesn’t show ‘schoolmistress’ explictly but she is working in a school and later census’ show her as a schoolmistress, so I am making a reasonable assumption here I hope! Her age is shown as 30, which is interesting. For the 1841 census, enumerators were told to round down the age of those over 15 to the nearest 5. Here, Eliza would actually have been 25/26 years old and so should have been shown as 25. I believe the enumerator made an error here and rounded her age up. I feel confident this was the Eliza Wilks we are speaking of…

1851 Census
Eliza, now 35, has moved again and took some finding. She is shown as at a school at 3 and 4 Addison Road, Kensington, London and is named as a Schoolmistress and the ‘Head’ for purposes of the ‘Relation to head of family’ column. I assume this probably means she is the Head Mistress of the school.

Interestingly two of her nieces, Lucy P Wilks (10) and Anna Wilks (7) are students at the school. Both were shown as being born in Charing too.

1861 Census
Eliza has moved yet again! She is now at a school at 3 and 4 Oaten Hill, Canterbury and her niece, Lucy P Wilks, previously a student at her school in Tottenham, is now a teacher working with her.

1871 Census
Things take a bit of a turn here… Eliza is shown as Housekeeper to a Robert W Coleman and family living at Oxford Lodge, West Hill Road, Wandsworth, London.

1881 Census
I have not been able to locate Eliza in this census. Worth noting is that I did coincidentally find ‘Elizabeth’ Wilks, who is actually Eliza’s sister-in-law, being married to her brother George Frederick, the GP. It is worth mentioning and noting that one of their children is called George. Here, Elizabeth happens to be staying with her daughter Susannah, who is married to the Rector of St Andrews, Canterbury, Samuel E Lepard, so her daughter is Susannah Lepard. Keep all of this in mind for later!

1891 Census
Eliza, now 75, is easily found living in The Street, Kennington, Ashford with her cousin Anna M Wilks who is 47. Eliza is shown as Aunt and of ‘Independent means’. They have a cook and a housemaid, so seem reasonably well off.

1901 Census
Here we find Eliza aged 85 and living at Temple House, Kennington with her niece Mary J Wilks who is 68. Mary’s place of birth is shown as NSW Sydney! Very exotic for then I would have thought. I believe Mary is a daughter of her older brother, William. Both ladies are shown of ‘Independent means’.

This actually took some finding as I believe the transcriber has made an error here and shows her as Eliza Wicks. I submitted the error to Findmypast for checking… I am confident this is Eliza as she is shown as born in Charing and has Mary Jane with her.

1904…
Eliza died on 17th July, 1904. Her probate shows her leaving her estate of £2293 7s and 6d to the Rev Samuel Campbell Lepard and Mary Jane Wilks. Note that the 1881 census I mentioned earlier showed the Rev Lepard as being her niece Susannah’s husband.

Tying things up…
So, Eliza had quite a life as a Schoolmistress and working in London and Canterbury. I wondered at the beginning if Eliza could be related to a famous Ashfordian, Dr. George Wilks…

The Ashford Museum is housed in a building that was the first Grammar School in Ashford. It is now known as the Doctor Wilks Memorial Hall after Doctor George Wilks who was a local GP and son of George Frederick Wilks, Eliza’s brother. So George is Eliza’s Nephew and Susannah Lepard’s brother. George was also a ‘Doctor of Music’ according to various articles and started a choir in the parish church, opposite the hall. I would heartily recommend this article on the Ashford Choral Society’s website, it tells much about George.

It was so nice to learn about Eliza’s life and interesting to find she was related to Doctor Wilks too.