William Watkin Waite and his family

(With grateful thanks to Abingdon Museum for allowing us to extract much of the following information from their Exhibition Guide.)

William Watkin Waite was born in Abingdon on 19 May 1778 and was baptised at St Helen’s Church.

His father ran the tannery business of Thomas Waite and Sons in Abingdon.

William was a contemporary of two of the country’s greatest artists, John Constable (1776-1837) and J M W Turner (1775-1851), but unlike these two he specialised in portraiture and was principally a miniaturist. Around fifty per cent of his known works are watercolours. The remainder are drawings in pencil, ink and chalk. There are also two silhouettes.

Many of William Waite’s works are family portraits. Other drawings were transformed into engravings and etchings for sale, such as The County Hall, Abingdon and the New Prison, Abingdon (now known as the Old Gaol). Waite also supplied a series of engravings for the publication, Watt’s Poems and in common with other artists, he painted popular ‘heroes’ of his time. In Waite’s case children such as The Calculating Boy in 1817 and the child actor, The Infant Roscius in 1825, as well as portraits of his own children, some of which were pasted onto the pages of a book that survives and still contains some of his and family members’ work.

Waite exhibited four miniatures at the Royal Academy, including one of Mr Waite in 1804 and another of Col. Wemyss in 1821. The Victoria and Albert Museum has a miniature by him of an elderly man, on ivory, dated 1819 and the British Museum has a stipple and aquatint portrait of G P Bidder (1806-1878), aged 11, engraved by H Meyer from a portrait by W W Waite.

William’s first marriage was to Martha Edgington. She was ten years his junior. They had three sons, who were all subjects of portraits by him, namely, William W Waite Junior, Richard and Benjamin.

During this marriage, William opened up a shop in Abingdon, where he did printing and sold stationery, newspapers and magazines. Jackson’s Oxford Journal, dated 28th April 1810, advertised the opening and reported that “W. Waite, late Thorpe’s, in the Market Place, advertises that he will open his shop for printing, stationery, &c., ‘being under the necessity of first going to London, in order to complete his stock… NB. Magazines, Reviews, London Newspapers, and other Periodical Publications, regularly supplied’

In 1821, William’s mother, Winifred, died and was buried at St Helen’s Church. In the same year his wife Martha died at the age of 33.

Two years later, at the age of 45, William married Miss Virtue Wilkins, who was 26. William and Virtue’s sons, Edward and Joseph, were also the subject of a number of paintings by their father and in later years these two were to become accomplished artists in their own right.

According to St Helen’s 1838 valuation schedule and map, the only occupier in Ock Street with the name of Waite occupied a house and garden in property No. 32, which, from the map, is the second property from Tannery Lane to the west. It was quite a wide property – more than half as wide as the main house at the Clock House. Down Tanyard Lane his neighbour, occupying a large property (property No. 30) was William Belcher. From this and the 1841 Census records, it is reasonable to deduce that William Watkin Waite lived at property No. 32 at this time. It is likely that William rented the whole property, sublet the shop to the baker, William Tomkins, while his second wife, Virtue, used the premises to run a seminary.

Virtue’s father was the Rev William Wilkins. He commenced his ministry in the Congregational Church in Abingdon on 5th July 1807. He kept up a good relationship with the Baptist congregation and a united service was held on Sunday evening in the Congregational and Baptist chapels alternately.

In 1841, according to the Census, the Rev. William Wilkins was resident on the south side of Ock Street, somewhere between the house of William Ballard and the Turnpike House.

Mr Wilkins was a minister of the church for 38 years. Those who knew him tell of his devoted self-denying kindness, his simple direct, doctrinal preaching, his old-fashioned and gentle courtesy, his genial humour and the respect in which he was held by all of the town’s people.

Circa 1845, the Rev. Wilkins, resigned his pastorate at Abingdon and went to live in Cheltenham. He died there on June 19, 1853, aged 81, but was brought back and is buried beneath the porch of Abingdon Congregational church’.

Virtue died in 1848 and according to the 1851 Census, her husband William Watkins Waite had moved to 53 East St Helen Street and was living with Thomas Copeland and his extensive family. Thomas was a first cousin, whose mother was a sister of Waite’s first wife, Martha Edgington.

Family tradition had it that William Watkin Waite died in a train between Dorking and Gomshall while travelling alone, although the death certificate states that he died at 16 Crown Street, Reading on 9th March 1856. This address in Reading is a mystery, since no other connection can be found to it.

The Rev. Edward Waite, was the first son of William and Virtue. He was born in Abingdon in 1824 and like his grandfather, entered the Ministry. He attended Cheshunt College and graduated MA in Philosophy and Economics in 1854. He was Headmaster of the School for the Sons of Missionaries at Blackheath from 1875 to 1892. He was a keen amateur artist and spent time sketching in watercolour. He exhibited a watercolour at the Royal Society of British Artists in 1868, No. 678. The Ferens Art Gallery at Kingston upon Hull has a watercolour by Edward Waite in its collection.

Edward’s brother, Joseph, died in 1883, after a brief ministry at Cardiff.