Bessy White

The first children of Catherine Veri Vlieland and Samuel Ethelbert White to survive infancy, twins Charles Ethelbert and Elisabeth Mary Mills Annie (Bessy), were baptised together at All Saints Southampton on 5th January 1859. 

 Bessy was shown in the 1881 census living at 9 Alfred St Lucas Terrace, Bow still living with the family. 
She was not mentioned in the Will of father Samuel Ethelbert White in 1886, though he leaves 4 children various properties. 

 It had long been the tradition of the ‘old families of England’ that the eldest son received the ‘estate’ (Charles had gained the main residence); unmarried daughters were usually supported through their lives through trusts (younger unmarried sister Bertha received a house - Number one Ryde Street, Canterbury)- like her brothers together with income after her Mothers death) and that married women received nothing. 

Elizabeth had, indeed, married Edgar Wallington in 1884. 

 Her marriage, shown as Elizabeth (‘Bessie’) to the son of a civil engineer, is announced in the Evening Standard.

 Her husband is a Surveyors Clerk for the War Office (Royal Engineers) and quite ‘well off’. Both father and grandfather James were farmers at Charlecote Warwickshire and each show up to six servants in census records - as well as many farmhands and boys working for them. Grandfather James Wallingtonleft almost £10,000 in 1868 at a time when the houses left to the White children were value at less than £50 each. 

By the 1911 census and both aged 51 they have retired down to Fenstanton Cambridgeshire (then Huntingdonshire). 

 After son Edgar James Ethelbert Middleton, her second son is named Lionel Mills after his Mother.

 In elder son Edgar’s marriage, he is shown as ‘EthelbertEdgar J M’ and his name in his probate documents as ‘Ethelbert James Edgar Middleton Wallington’. 

‘Bessies’ death is noted, aged 84, in Chard Somerset in early 1943.



Father's Name: Samuel Ethelbert White

Mother's Name: Catherine Veri White