The Hairdresser & The Gunsmith

Post by **Blue70** » 05 Mar 2012 00:49

I found a missing baptism this evening that confirms the unlikely sounding link between my hairdresser ancestor (Samuel Willetts) and his gunsmith father (Silvanus Willetts). I managed to track it down after a lengthy first name search on Ancestry's Liverpool records. Their surname had been misheard at St. Nicholas church in 1794 and recorded as Philips rather than Willetts. This register has some nice additions to the usual baptismal information. It confirms he was their first child and that the parents married at St. Paul's.

Blue

Post by **dickiesam** » 05 Mar 2012 10:19

Hey Blue,
That's some leap from gunsmith to hairdresser... Makes you think when you come across such a 'dramatic' a change of trade. Were there older male siblings who might have inherited the business and left no room for the Samuel?

DS

Post by **Blue70** » 05 Mar 2012 11:31

One of the other sons was a blacksmith and in later years the father was recorded as a smith so the gun business doesn't appear to have been as profitable in later years.

Blue

Post by **MaryA** » 05 Mar 2012 13:01

Love it when you touch lucky like that, it's more often an RC baptism and marriage that get linked together, so yours is probably even rarer. Have you checked to see if there might have been a Licence?

Post by **Blue70** » 05 Mar 2012 16:42

Hi Mary,

No I hadn't thought about a licence. I know there were quite a few Willetts gunmakers around I think their roots were in the midlands. My one wasn't born in Lancashire according to the 1841 Census so he may have come to Liverpool with his family who were probably in the business. There's a Samuel and a Benjamin Willetts in the gunmaking business around the same time based in Liverpool one of these will probably be Silvanus's father.

Blue

Post by **Barbara B** » 05 Mar 2012 17:02

Is my memory playing tricks or did there used to be a chain of cake shops called Willetts? I seem to remember a friend of mine had a Saturday job there.
Barbara

Post by **daggers** » 05 Mar 2012 18:03

Wallers?
D

Post by **Blue70** » 05 Mar 2012 21:14

The first extract below shows Sylvanus Willetts in a 1796 directory with two other Willetts in the same business. The second extract shows Samuel Willetts and Thomas Willetts in an 1848 directory, both were hairdressers, they were two of Sylvanus's sons.

Blue