John Whick was a musician in the Royal Marines. He served on at least sixteen ships, most notably HMS Victory under James Saumarez from 1808 until 1812. While on board the Victory, he wrote a number of letters to his family, mostly to his sister and brother-in-law Margaret and Thomas Lane, my fifth great grandparents. The Whick letters were collected and transcribed by Helen Watt and Anne Hawkins in their book Letters of Seamen in the Wars with France, 1793-1815 and were used as a significant source for life on board Victory post-Trafalgar by Iain Ballantyne and Jonathan Eastland in Victory: From Fighting the Armada to Trafalgar and Beyond. But for me, the letters are an invaluable source of information about my ancestors.

John (actually Henry John Whick) was born circa 1778 and baptised on 19 March 1779 at Claverley in Shropshire. He was the first child of John Whick (ca 1754 - 1818) and his first wife Lettice (ca 1759 - 1796); Margaret (my ancestor) was their second, baptised in 1782; and Ann and Mary were baptised in 1792 – presumably twins, although as ten years is a very long gap between children, perhaps they had been born earlier than that and baptised as older children. After Lettice’s death, John Sr married again, to Elizabeth Holmes in 1797, and they had a further eight children. John’s letters also mention an uncle William Taylor and an aunt Bently, but I haven’t been able to find any further information about them.

John joined the Royal Marines at Wolverhampton on 28 September 1796, giving his age as sixteen and described as being 5’2¼” tall and having brown hair, grey eyes and a fresh complexion. He served on at least sixteen ships, including the Romney and Inconstant before joining the Victory in early 1808:

I have takeing this Oppertunity to write these few lines to you this day I wrote to my wife Father & Sister Ann. I have not heard from my Father since I was at home. I have been on board 16 ships since I saw you and am now on board the Victory with Sir James Saumers going on the Expadition up the Baltic
— 2 April 1808
(This and all the letters quoted on this page were addressed to John's sister Margaret and her husband Thomas Lane.)

Less than three weeks later, John writes again, with news that his wife had given birth to a son the previous year. Tragically, both his wife and son had passed away: his son from smallpox, and his wife lost at sea:

My wife was brought to bed with a young John on the 12th of June last but the Small Pox Carried it off again to the other world, and I am Afraid that on my wifes passage to Guernsey She was Cast a way in the Equetor Gales as there was several small vessels lost and I Cannot hear from her this two months and, I had liked to lost my life in the Inconstant Frigate, for I Never was nearer in all my Perils & Dangers.
— 20 April 1808

I haven’t been able to find any further details about either of John’s wife or son – there are no obviously-matching parish register entries for either the marriage or the baptism and burial of the son.

John clearly thought very highly of his brother-in-law and the Lane family:

Dear Peggy I hope you will give my Love in the Kindest manner to My Brother[-in-law] Thomas as he had prov’d so Excellent a husband to you, he shall always meet my warmest Esteem as long as I live and a Corraspondance shall never be dropt by me weather you are dead or alive. there is no doubt of his Cair to the Children.
— 20 July 1811

In an earlier letter of 22 March 1809 he even asked Margaret to recommend to their sister Mary that, if she is still unmarried, that Walter Lane (presumably Thomas’s younger brother) would make a good husband!

John clearly found being away from his family for such extended periods hard, and often complained about a lack of responses, sometimes quite sarcastically:

I have not heard from home This 8 Months I cannot tell weather you are all Dead or not, pleas to let my Father know that you have received this from me and he can write to me as soon as is Conveniant, as this one letter will serve both you and him and save Expence.
— 29 November 1809
I have the Satisfaction to write a few lines to you in hopes to get an answer before our ship goes to sea, it being Nearly five months since we arriv’d in port and I never got but one letter from home all the while either from you or my father. If I Cannot get any Account from home, it is of no use me writing any more as I am absent I am afraid I am forgot, or Else you would Shew more love for the only and absent Brother.
— 16 April 1810

This letter clearly received a much longer response from Margaret, who must have felt that she really couldn’t win when John responded:

I hope you will put up with this short Epistle of mine as its short & not tedious, but your last letter was so long and tiresome that it took me nearly a week to read it it something resembled the wars of the Jews [a history by Flavius Josephus in 7 volumes], in its Length.
— 20 June 1810

Unfortunately none of the responses to John’s letters have survived, and we can only speculate on their contents. For example, there is no record of what John’s sister Ann had done in 1811 to deserve this comment:

Pleas to tell Ann the Next time you see her that she as totally lost my Affections for her, nor will she Ever gain them again through her bad conduct, and behaving with such disrespect to all the Family. I hope Mary never will behave in such a manner as long as she lives.
— 8 January 1811

Unfortunately it seems that Mary would also not live up to John’s hopes for her, and would also do something to offend him less than two years later – although by this time it seems that his opinion of Ann had improved somewhat, and he was particularly complimentary about her new husband:

I am very sorry for my Sister Mary’s Conduct, but she must do the best she can for herself, for sence she has turnd out Bad you might depend upon the word of your Brother J. Whick that I will never speak to her again during life, tho I should meet her in the street to Morrow. Therefore, if ever you see her again, tell her plump and plain, that I will never own her nor Call her, by the Name or title of Sister, not as long as I live, for Disgraceing the Family I belong to.
[...]
I understand Davis and Nancy agree very well, and he makes her a good husband. he is allways very Attentive in writing to me at all Oppertunitys, and I hope and trust Brother Thomas still Continues as good to you as he used to be, and then I am sure you must live Comfertable together.
— 1 December 1812

Ann Whick and James Davis were married in Birmingham in 1821, nine years after this letter. It seems that they had been living together as husband and wife for quite some time beforehand; James is listed as a widower on the marriage record, which might explain this: it wasn’t uncommon for people whose marriage had broken down to live together with a new partner but not be able to formally marry them until their first spouse had passed away.

The very same letter contained another bombshell, in the form of news about John’s apparently-deceased wife:

I have no particuler News to Communicate to you, But I have some small hint within these few days, that Instead of my wife Being Drown’d about 5 years ago, she is Returnd from America sence the war broke out, with the Captain of a ship and she lives at Plymouth. but if that be the Case she will never live with me again you may Depend.
— 1 December 1812

This was to be the last time that John wrote. Later that same month, he was returned to headquarters in Portsmouth, and his naval records end shortly after with a note of “DD at Quarters” on 4 January 1813; this is apparently a common shorthand for “discharged dead”, although some researchers have suggested that it merely means “discharged”. Certainly Whick had been complaining of poor health for quite some time, and the idea that he could have died by suicide after learning about his adulterous wife is also very plausible.

In several letters, John mentions his godson, Thomas and Margaret’s fourth child Richard Devey Lane. The only other detail that I have found about him is a mention in his father’s will, in which he inherits only one shilling, the rest of the estate being divided equally among Thomas’s eight other surviving children. Unfortunately the will doesn’t mention any reasons for this; it’s tempting to read it as Richard having fallen out of his father’s favour, but equally it was common for one or more children to receive their share of the estate while the parents were still alive, and accordingly receive nothing much in the will.

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