ann wheeler

find out more about ann wheeler

Ann was admitted to Powick hospital on 23 August 1884 from her home in Wellington Row, Sidemoor, Bromsgrove. She was described as a 62 year old widow with five children, a nail maker and Methodist, unable to read or write.

Her diagnosis was acute melancholia and religious delusions and she was said to be dangerous to others; this was difficult to imagine as she was feeble and emaciated (weighing just over four stone) and suffering from lung congestion. Despite this she was allocated a padded cell.

During the next four years there was little improvement in her mental condition and she died on 5 October 1888 of chronic bronchitis and heart failure. Her death was announced in the Bromsgrove Messenger on 13 October.

This bleak scenario was a very sad conclusion to the life of a hardworking wife and mother who had lost her husband just a few months before her admission.

Ann was baptised at Bromsgrove on 2 May 1823, the first of at least nine children born to Charles Troth and his wife Mary (nee Smith). Charles was a nail maker by trade, as were most people in the Sidemoor area of Bromsgrove at the time. Nail making was a type of cottage industry, where men, women and children worked from home and Ann would have learned the trade from an early age.

In the 1841 census Ann was living at Sidemoor Common with her parents and seven younger siblings. In 1851 she was still there with her parents, six younger siblings and also two little girls, Caroline aged 4 and Ellen aged 2.

By 1861 Ann had disappeared from her parents’ household along with Caroline and Ellen. It transpired that she had married James Wheeler at Bromsgrove at the end of 1858 and in the 1861 census the couple were living at Providence Square in Sidemoor together with their five children, Edwin (17), Caroline (14), Ellen (12), Phoebe (8) and David (6).

It is a mystery why Ann and James did not marry until their family was complete, given that both were free to do so. Ann was single and James was a widower whose first wife had died in September 1841, leaving him as a single father with two young children. In 1851 their first child Edwin (b. 1843) was living with his father James and two half siblings.

All five of the children were officially registered under their mother’s maiden name of Troth. This was an unusual situation given that the nail making community was strongly Methodist and Ann herself was clearly religious. She seemed to have an unconventional way of going about things. 

By 1871 the couple’s three older children had married and moved out, leaving only the two teenagers Phoebe and David at home. In 1881 Ann and James were still living in Wellington Row. Phoebe and David had left but Caroline and her husband William Kimberley had moved in. 

In all the census returns, Ann’s occupation was shown as nail maker, doing her bit to boost the family income. This would undoubtedly been in addition to normal domestic duties and child care, making Ann an early working mum. She and James managed to raise all of their five children to adulthood, which was a feat in itself at the time. All five went on to marry and the three younger ones produced a grand total of 25 offspring between them!

Ann was widowed early in 1884 when James died and this loss almost certainly undermined her physical and mental health leading to her admission to Powick. 

Despite her subsequent sad decline, Ann had a lot to be proud of, as documented above. She was able to live on through her many descendants and continues to do so. 

Research by Judith Mee, Ann Wheeler’s 3 x great granddaughter.

To view Ann’s patient records, click here.

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