House explosions in Cheltenham 1904

In our small chapel, situated on Stockwell Lane, Woodmancote there is a memorial plaque now relegated to the back room.  The reason for this is that we don't hold with memorials that much as a congregation but this particular one has very little, if anything, to do with our church.  Or so we thought. It is for the wife of the Rev. Leonard James Wake who was the dissenting  minister at North Place Chapel, Cheltenham for 28 years.  A small brass plaque tells of it's rescue from a skip when a building company was converting the redundant chapel into a gym or some such thing back in the 1990s.  The rescuer took the plaque, had it mounted on board which was given a paint effect to look like marble, and fixed a small brass plaque to this to explain the origins of the stone plaque.

So, who was the Rev. Leonard Wake?
He was from Norfolk, married and had one child.  28 years were spent in Cheltenham where I understand he did much for the spiritual welfare of those who came under his care.
 

He was baptised in the local Anglican church, Swannington, NFK on 26 September 1791.  His parents were Richard & Ann Wake, and according to the website Freereg he was the eldest child and only son with four sisters - Mary Ann 1792, Charlotte 1794, Rachel 1795 & Susan 1797.  His mother was still alive at the time of the 1841 census and was of independent means.

Leonard studied at the Countess of Huntingdon Connection college - Cheshunt College one of two colleges founded by the Countess of Huntingdon.  Prior to this he would have had a sound education - without more information on his father's circumstances it is impossible to ascertain what this would have been - school or tutor, local or boarding school.

On 9th August 1831 Leonard married a lady about eight years his junior, Elizabeth Titterton of Shoreditch.  They were married by licence at Saint John the Baptist, Croydon [IGI].  Elizabeth was born in Shoreditch - the IGI records a birth of 3 July and christening 8 August 1798, to parents Thomas & Elizabeth at St Leonards, Shoreditch.  Elizabeth had the following siblings: George 1796, James 1800,  Charles 1803,  Henry 1804 and Sophia 1806.

The plaque mentions a daughter - Elizabeth Sophia Wake.  She was born 18 November 1833 in Lambeth, SRY & baptised/registered 29 June 1834 [Register of Births and Baptisms at the Trinity Chapel of the Countess of Huntingdons Denomination in Brixton in the Parish of Lambeth, Surrey from 1829 to 1837].  What this plaque does not mention is that Elizabeth Sophia died in Cheltenham in the summer of 1859, just 25 years old.

The family lived on Portland Street [this road runs parallel to North Place where the chapel building is situated] in 1841, Hewlett Road 1851 and at North Place Chapel 1861.  By 1871 Leonard & Elizabeth were at Newmarket Road, Norwich.  The house that they lived in was called Cheltenham House, so it would seem that they had generally happy memories of the place that they had lived for over 28 years in naming their new home of their former place of residence.

Elizabeth died 6th July 1874 and left under £2000, probate being granted 'under certain limitations' on 25 November of the same year.  Leonard died on 14th May 1879 leaving a will with codicil, probate granted to brother in law Charles Titterton of Park Villa, Roehampton, SRY and Frederick William Willcocks of Clerkenwell, MSX.  He left under £6000.

So, what is the connection with Woodmancote?  Rev Wake bought the land for the Woodmancote Chapel from Mr Neighbour Hobbs who lived in Rose Cottage which is next to the church.  North Place Chapel had the responsibility of the affairs of the church into the C20th finally handing over to a local committee in 1920.

POSTSCRIPT 1 May 2012
Shortly after posting this entry I was contacted by a former member of the North Place Chapel who had been storing in his garage, for over 20 years, part of the original monument to the Wake family.  This is a stone similar in size and appearance to the one above, commemorating daughter Elizabeth Sophia.  Unfortunately the builders had smashed it when loading it into the skip but the current holders of it have managed to piece it together for illustrative purposes, colour in the 'lost' letters caused by fading etc. and photograph it for archive purposes.