Tony Fuller

Whilst researching the memorial inscriptions in St Matthias Church in Poplar, I came across the memorial of Margaret Woolmore, the wife of John Woolmore, a Captain in the East India Company’s (HEIC/HEIC’s) Marine Service.  She died on 2 December 1788 at the age of 36, after a four-month illness, whilst her husband was abroad with his ship. Margaret was buried in the grounds of the EIC chapel on 9 December 1788.

As my research into the site continued I came across the name of Woolmore Street in both the East of London Parish Return series for Poplar in 1821 and 1831 and on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1869.  It is still there as is Woolmore School, which stands in Woolmore Street.

My research took me to the Oriental and India Office Collection (formerly the India Office Library) which is now part of the British Library in Camden and there, amongst information I was looking for on other mariners who lived in Poplar, I came across more information about John Woolmore.  This coincided with the rediscovery of an index of HIEC mariners that had been lost for many years and finding yet even more information about John Woolmore at Bancroft Road Library in Mile End.  From these sources it was possible to build up a picture of John Woolmore’s life and career.

In February 2000, an article that I wrote about John WOOLMORE appeared in Cockney Ancestor, the Journal of the East of London Family History Society.  That generated a letter from another Woolmore researcher, which was supplemented by a letter from Bill Woolmore, who lives in Australia and who had heard that I was undertaking this research through the Woolmore Street School.

John was born in Whitechapel, the son of John Woolmore and Ann, of Rosemary Lane.  He was baptised on 4 May 1755 at St Mary’s, Whitechapel where his brother, Thomas, was baptised about eighteen months later.

He had a number of brothers and sisters, all of whom were baptised in the Poplar area, an indication that the family had links with the East India Company because the only real employment in the East London area was through the EIC or Blackwall docks.  Other family baptisms are as follows, in each instance the parents being given as John and Ann.  The baptism took place at St Mary, Whitechapel:
 

2 December 1753  Elizabeth, address given as “Roadside”
4 May 1755   JOHN WOOLMORE
c. November 1756  Thomas

The following baptisms took place at St Dunstan, Stepney:
 

26 November 1758 William, aged 40 days, occupation given
as Victualler
18 January 1760  Charles, aged 4 days, occupation given
as Victualler
16 August 1761  George, aged 10 days, occupation given
as Victualler
18 August 1762  Richard, aged 6 days, John’s occupation
given as “Inn Holder”
30 May 1764  James, 30 days old, occupation given
as Victualler

In December 1770, at the age of 15, he joined the Duke of Richmond as a midshipman, making the return journey to Bencoolen in India and China.  Both the Granby and the Duke of Richmond were owned by Sir Charles Raymond, who was to be Woolmore’s patron for many years to come, in return for which Woolmore ensured Raymond received a substantial return on his investment in his ships.

Woolmore then served on the Stormont, again as a midshipman.  He left England in 1773 and sailed to the Coromandel Coast of India, returning to England in August 1774.  He then appears to have left the EIC’s service and worked on English coastal trade ships for some eight months.  Following this he sailed as second mate on the EIC ship the Earl of Chesterfield but details of the voyage are unknown.

There followed a relatively long break in Woolmore’s EIC service from 1774 to 1777, when he served on the Harcourt, a non-EIC ship, trading to America.  He was the ship’s second mate and his brother Thomas served as third mate.

On 14 October 1778, Woolmore returned to EIC service.  On that date he was approved to serve as third mate on the Earl Talbot again contracting to Sir Charles Raymond. He was again due to sail with Thomas, who was the fourth mate. Interestingly, it was usual for sworn officers to leave their attestation and go straight to their ship where, by and large, they would remain until the ship was ready to sail. In addition, the ship usually sailed within two months of the attestations taking place although in this instance this does not seem to have happened.

There is a Bishop of London’s Licence dated 28 December 1778 which states that Margaret Wickham MASON had appeared before the Court

“… and made Oath that she is of the Parish of St Dunstan, Stepney, in the County of Middlesex, aged upwards of 21 years, spinster and intendeth to marry
John Woolmore of the same parish (aged) upwards of 21, bachelor of the Parish Church of St Dunstan, Stepney
And further made Oath that the usual place of abode of the Applicants hath been the said Parish of St Dunstan, Stepney for the space of 4 weeks past.
Signed:  Margaret Wickham Mason”

The marriage, which was witnessed by William and Elizabeth Mason, took place on 31 December 1778.

The Earl Talbot sailed from ?? on 9 March 1779 bound for St Helena, the Coromandel Coast and Bay of Bengal.  The ship arrived returned to its moorings in on 8 February 1781.

On 29 March 1781 John was appointed second mate on the Earl of Chesterfield.  On 26 June 1781the ship together with the rest of the convoy, sailed from Plymouth bound for Madras where it arrived in India in 1782.  At some stage Woolmore was taken ill and when the ship returned to England, he was left behind in hospital in Madras.

However, even that potential disaster turned to his advantage.  When he recovered he was appointed captain of a Country Ship, one of the fleet of privately-owned, non-HEIC ships, that plied and traded around the seas off India and the Far East.  He remained in what was usually a personally lucrative role for the next five years.  It was whilst Woolmore was in India that his brother Thomas was killed at sea on 8 March 1783.
John eventually returned from India as a passenger on the Contractor, arriving in England in June 1787.   He became a sworn officer on 18 September 1787 and at the same time was appointed captain of the Earl Talbot for the season 1787/8.  The ship was still owned by Sir Charles Raymond and it made a successful return voyage to India and China, leaving the Downs 4 April 1788 and returning to its moorings in the Thames 27 April 1789.

It was whilst he was away on this trip that his wife, with whom he could have had little or no real contact throughout their married life, died. She died on 2 December 1788 at the age of 36, after a four-month illness, whilst her husband was abroad with his ship. Margaret was buried in the grounds of the EIC chapel on 9 December 1788.

He was again appointed captain of the Earl Talbot in 1789/90 but made it clear on his return that he wanted to retire from the sea.  Despite the amount of time that he had spent abroad, having been almost permanently at sea since 1767, he was still only 35 years old.

At some stage in 1787, Captain John Woolmore joined the Society of East India Company Commanders, which was based at the Jerusalem Coffee House in London.  In the Society’s list of members dated 1820, John Woolmore is shown as being the most senior commander still in membership, despite his having retired from the sea many years previously, which indicates that he still wanted to be associated with the working group of his fellow mariners.

His decision to quit the sea could, however, be explained in part by his marrying his second wife, Harriett TURNER on 14 January 1790.  Her father was John TURNER, of Limehouse and her brother was Charles Hampden-Turner of Rooks Nest, Godstone, Surrey.

He then became a managing owner although in April 1792 he took steps with the EIC Council to ensure that the Council would accept him back as a sea-farer should he wish to do so.  However, by that time his business was ashore.

Between 1794 and 1808 he is known to have been the owner or part owner of Earl of Wycombe, Earl Howe, Admiral Gardner, Lord Duncan, William Bensley, Harriett and Huddart, all of which were large enough to trade with both India and China.  The Huddart was named after Woolmore’s contemporary and friend, Captain Joseph Huddart.  The ship was built at Blackwall in 1803 by Messrs. Green and Wigram at a cost of £19 per ton.

Huddart (1751-1816) who also became an Elder of Trinity House, is probably best remembered in marine circles as the inventor of the system of high water marks in the London Docks which remained in use until the docks closed in the 1960s. Huddart was also responsible for inventing a new system for the production of rope and cordage which, until he did so, was regarded as being unreliable.  Huddart, Woolmore and his brother-in-law, Charles Hampden-Turner, became the partners in a company which produced the new rope and which, by all reports, was successful.

By 1795, Woolmore was becoming involved in the national political scene and in that year he, together with a number of people with an interest in the EIC including Robert WIGRAM I, signed the "London Declaration of Support" for Pitt.

John Woolmore continued to be active in the local area and in the maritime trade generally. On 6 June 1803 he was elected as an Elder Brethren of Trinity House “in the room (i.e. instead of) John Cotton” and he became the Deputy Master on 7 February 1825, a post he held until 1834.  His appointment as Deputy Master followed the death of another of his contemporaries, Captain Joseph (or John) Cotton, who, along with Huddart and Woolmore, had roads named after them in East London, viz. Huddart Street, Stepney and Cotton Street, Poplar.  Other East India luminaries like William Wells also had streets named after them but they have since disappeared.

However, the most lasting effect that Woolmore and his colleagues had on the area was undoubtedly the formation of the East India Dock Company and the building of the East India Docks between 1803 and 1806.  In the Survey of London, Vol ?? John Woolmore and Robert Wigram are described as the driving force behind the East India Dock Company. Wigram is often described as the most prolific of EIC ships-husbands.  He was also politically astute and was successful enough never to have had to become a shareholder in the EIC despite earning much of his considerable fortune from and through the Company.  Woolmore however, was a stockholder in the EIC and, at one stage, he had three votes because of the amount of stock which he held.

On 6 May 1803 Woolmore was elected as Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Constructing the East India Docks and, when the company was floated in 1822 He was appointed Deputy Chairman, with Robert Wigram in the chair.  He remained Deputy Chairman until 1824 and served in the same role between 1827 and 1832.  The acted as Chairman 1827 to 1827, 1830 to 1831 and 1834 to 1835.

Wigram left the company early on in its life but Woolmore remained in post and continued to develop it.   It is the list of initial East India Dock Company shareholders, which tells the whole of the story.  The initial list of subscribers has twenty-five names on it.  Of these, sixteen owned East Indiamen ships and a number of them had in fact been an EIC mariner.  Additionally, families like Borrodale, Locke and Wigram still had family members serving in their ships.

In 1804 the East India Dock Company bought a large tract of land close to the dock and started to develop the area for what we would now call commercial and residential use.  As noted above, as directors of the company and owners of the land, the subscribers named many of the new streets in the area after themselves.  In addition, the index of leases at Bancroft Road Library shows that Woolmore was involved in a number of leasing transactions in the Poplar area.  The leases indicate that he worked in a permanent partnership with a number of his colleagues who were involved in developing the area between Poplar High Street and the East India Dock Road.

The names of those signing leases jointly with Woolmore, who is described as living in Hampton, between 1809 and 1823 are:
 

• Joseph Cotton, of Leyton (also Leytonstone)
• Sir William Curtis, Baronet, Southgate
• Abel Chapman, St Thomas Street, Southwark
• William Wells, Redleaf, Kent.

Both Curtis and Chapman were also owners of East Indiamen ships and would have known Woolmore through the close knit circle in which they all moved.

In 1806, Woolmore took another step onto the national political arena when he stood for Parliament.  In December 1806 he and William Jacob purchased the seat of Westbury from the trustees of the Earl of Abingdon, who needed funds to satisfy his creditors.  In the Parliamentary lists for the period, he is recorded as an East India Company member.  Woolmore had close links to the Greville administration (???? To ????) and he was listed as being “friendly” to the abolition of slavery.  He is not known to have spoken in the House of Commons.
He served in Portland’s ministry before the general election of 1807, when his parliamentary career was curtailed.  He stood for the seat of St Ives but was defeated, after which he effectively retired from politics.

According to the EIC owner’s list of 1802, Woolmore lived at 12 Bishopsgate Street near what is now Liverpool Street Station, which was at that time a desirable, semi-rural area.  Between 1806 and 1818 the EIC shareholder records give his address as Queen Square, Bloomsbury and from 1830 to 1839 as 15 Bruton Street, Berkeley Square, London.  In 1811 he was appointed a Director of the Royal Exchange Assurance Company.

Despite giving up his role as a ship’s husband, he maintained his interest in trade with India and the Far East.  On 14 April 1813, Woolmore gave evidence to the House of Commons on trade with the East Indies.

Woolmore remained a member of Trinity House after he resigned as Deputy Master in May 1834 at the age of 79.  As a tribute to his status in Trinity House, his coat of arms was put into the south-east window of the chapel at the Trinity Hospital in Mile End and his arms were also hung in the EIC chapel.  Both are illustrated in later published works concerning these buildings.

He was made Knight Bachelor on 27 March 1834 at Windsor Castle and also a Knight Commander of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order later in 1834.  He died at his home at 15 Bruton Street, off Piccadilly, on 2 December 1837 at the age of 82.  Like his wife Margaret he was buried in Poplar.

In his obituary he was described as:

John Woolmore was buried in the same vault at the EIC chapel as his first  wife.  According to the chapel’s records, in addition to those of his wife, the vault also held the remains of:

• Mrs Ann Lucas (late Woolmore), mother of Captain John Woolmore, who died 31 January 1802, aged 80
• Mrs Mary Eastfield, sister of the first Mrs Woolmore, died 23 January 1838, aged 82
• William John Eastfield, who died 18 January 1841, aged 63.

His second wife, Harriett, Lady Woolmore, continued to live in the Bruton Street house until her death in November 1845.

Like so many of his contemporaries, Woolmore left his name and his achievements as his legacy to the East End of London.  In many ways it is sad that their contributions to marine and community services are not better remembered today.
 
 

• * indicates East Indiaman ship owner
• ^ indicates East Indiaman ship builder

NEAVE, Sir Richard  *
CURTIS, Sir William  *
AGAR, Moses   *
ATKINS, John   n/k
BONHAM, Henry   *
BORRODALE, William  *
CHAPMAN, Abel   *
GILLETT, Gabriel   *
GREEN, George   ^
HUDDART, Joseph  ^
LARKINS, John Pascall  *
LEWIN, Richard (younger) *
LOCK(E), John   *
MOFFATT, William  *
PERRY, John   ^
PERRY, John (younger)  ^
PERRY, Philip   ^
PRINSEP, John   *
TAYLOR, Robert   ^
WEDDERBURN, John  *
WELLS, John   n/k
WELLS, William (younger) n/k
WIGRAM, Robert   *
WIGRAM, Robert (younger) *
WOOLMORE, John  *

Index    East India

20.04.02ef