March 2008 – Edition 35

Unlike too many chefs in the kitchen, more
genealogists seem to improve our understanding of
the Jerrems heritage.

This article started life as a short light-hearted item,
but when Editor Donald raised some queries I
realised that it needed more explanations. Like the
legendary “Topsy” it has grown.

The result is that if you
want to you can skip over details like the cross
references to earlier Journals, but these references
could be of interest to researchers in the future.
After all we have issued 34 editions of the Journal so
far (I
have just counted them for the first time!) so cross
referencing can be helpful.

Back to the article. In the February edition of the
Journal I announced the big news that Sandra
has
traced a “new” branch of the Jerrems family back to
Wappenham in England. Her great great grandfather
Joseph was born in Wappenham and
emigrated to
the US in the 1830s. Joseph was also
Sarah’s
ancestor.

I also related to you how that branch’s surname had
shifted over a period of time from “Jerromes”
to “Jerrams” and finally to “Jerrems”.

To put this in context, several years ago I had traced
what I thought were three separate families in the
USA, in addition to the number of families in the US
who are descendants of William George
Jerrems.
One of these families included the blacksmith
James
H. Jerrems, who I labeled “the strongest
Jerrems” in
the January 2006 Journal.

Sandra has found that these three families were
actually parts of a single family, and that there
was a
further part of that family in the US (to which she
belongs) which I had not previously located.

In earlier Journals I described the history of the
Gainsborough area because I felt that it would
help
readers understand how the main Jerrems family had
evolved. For the same reason I will now tell you
something about Wappenham, where Sandra and
Sarah’s “new” family originated.

What an unusual name! In a flight of irreverent fancy I
wondered initially whether large pigs had been bred
there and they had been named “Whopping Hams”,
later adapted to “Wappenham”. However I soon
discovered (with the help of Mr Google) the more
prosaic explanation that the name is derived from the
name “Wapeham”, recorded in the Domesday
Book, a
record of the survey carried out in 1086 by William the
Conqueror.

The Village website tells us that:

“The village has a population around 200 and like
a lot
of villages most people commute elsewhere to work
and children travel to schools in Silverstone and
Towcester. There are a couple of buses a week going
to Northampton and one to Banbury.

We have a number of small businesses operating in
the village but agriculture predominates in the
surrounding area. Whilst, regretfully, we have no pub,
we do have a much valued Post Office and Stores and
a ‘Postie’ who lives in the village.

There are a number of thriving organisations which
provide essential social contact and community
service for all ages. The old school, which is now the
village hall, is the centre for many of the activities
including meetings of the Parish Council and Annual
Assembly. Religious Services and other activities also
take place at the Chapel and the Church.

The village is linear in style and comprises a mix of
old and new houses but with no large developments.
A number of the older buildings are listed, as is the
old red telephone box on the green opposite the
church. We have no street lighting which some
consider keeps us, literally, in the dark ages! The 13th
century Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin is a
prominent feature and there are fine examples of
architect Sir Gilbert Scott designs around the village
including the Rectory next to the church. There is a
good network of well signposted public footpaths from
which the village and its features can be better viewed
and appreciated.”

No pub in Wappenham! In Australia we had “The Pub
With No Beer”, which I thought was a tragedy, but to
have a village with no pub at all is infinitely worse.

Comparison of the present population of 200 with
earlier populations shows that the population
declined significantly in the 20th Century. The
population was 367 in 1801 (when Sandra’s
ancestors lived there), 383 in 1901 and 213 in 1971.
Perhaps the decline was caused by the closing of the
pub.

The Domesday Book records a priest at
Wappenham
in 1086 (indicating that the village existed at that time),
however the beautiful St Mary the Virgin Church has
only been dated back to 1300, with some parts added
later. The members of “Friends of St Mary’s” help with
fund raising for the Church.

How does one have a “St Mary” (I thought that saints
were males)? Goodness knows!

Perhaps some of the “new” family who stayed behind
in Wappenham are buried in the Church’s cemetery.
We will try to find out. We need Sue Jerrems to go
back to England to look there (remember her
photographs of Jerrems family gravestones in St
Helens Cemetery at Willingham? Edition 14, June
2006).

Photos of the village (including the photos in the
February edition) confirm that the village is linear in
style, as described on the website. Most of the
houses are on the main street, although a photo of the
former Work House shows a side lane.
I will tell you about Work Houses (also known as Poor
Houses or Asylums) in another article.

It is interesting to see that most of the houses are
almost on the street itself, and that they are large, with
high gabled roofs.

Wappenham was shaken to its foundations on 27th
September last year when BBC Radio Northampton
came to Wappenham Village Hall to record “The
Green Welly Show Gardeners’ Question Time” (for the
uninitiated a “Welly” is a gardening gumboot). The
good citizens of Wappenham were invited to “Come
and put those gardening queries to the team of
experts”. All this excitement for the modest fee of six
pounds, to include wine and light refreshments.

The small size of the population indicates that
historically the village did not do much more than
provide basic services to the surrounding rural
community. In this regard it was like a multitude of
villages sprinkled through the countryside of England
in the 19th Century. In the days when most people
travelled on foot they needed access to basic facilities
within easy travelling distance of their homes. For
more complex things like weekly markets they could
travel further afield. For instance Towcester, a market
town dating back to Roman times (it was on the
famous Watling Street, a paved Roman road), is only
6 miles away. In fact the close proximity of Towcester
would have virtually doomed Wappenham to
permanently playing a minor commercial role.

We could surmise that Wappenham in its heyday
(using this term rather tongue-in-cheek) in the early
1800s, when Sandra’s great great grandfather
(Joseph) lived there, would have had a general
store,
a produce store, a blacksmith and a carpentry
workshop (I have included this because Joseph was
a carpenter, so he would probably have done his
training in Wappenham).

We do not know whether the family of 10 children lived
in the village or on a farm. Joseph’s brother
James
was later a farmer in the US, so it is probable that they
lived on a farm.

So at least I have made a start in telling you
something about the newly discovered family.

Incidentally, for readers who like geography,
Gainsborough, which has featured so heavily
in our Journal articles, is 175 km (110 miles) north of
Wappenham.

Also, Mottisfont (remember the article
about Jerrems Hill? (pictured from JJ
Edition 15, Sept 2006) is a similar distance south.
This seems to indicate that the original connection
between the families must go back a long way.
Wappenham is tiny compared with nearby towns like
Towcester (population 9500), Buckingham
(population 11,500 in 2001) and Brackley (population
13,300 in 2001).

If the village was on a motorway and you blinked at the
wrong time you would miss it!

Click here for map; Wappenham on green
arrow.

Watch for our family runner, Warren Jerrems, in the
112th running of the Boston Marathon on April 21st; he
was featured in JJ Edition 13, April 2006. Retired
Marathoner, Donald, will be spectating on the Boston
sidelines.

Let’s hope our family Guardian Angel
Angie
(JJ Edition 33 January 2008) stays with him as he
runs up Heartbreak Hill.

And, we are still looking for good Jerrems stories
and “Remember Me” Photos.