The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 50 No.2 | Sept 2023

Member’s article

Ambrose whose work in the dockyard earned him the award of the Imperial Service Medal in 1914, could have been in Rosyth during part of WWI. Another son, Sidney Bertram, was born on 12th August 1886 when the family were living at 28 Longs Road in Landport. Unhappily he died early in the following year. Just as an aside, it is interesting to note that the forename Bertram is to occur again; in this instance in the family of George Dewey a more distant relative. Leonard Bertram, George’s son, a Chief Engineering Room Artificer, who had lived at 65 Crofton Road in North End, had at least two sons, Lawrence Betram born 1923 and Kenneth George, born 1927. Does this indicate a possible link between more distant parts of the family at the end of the 19th century? There was even an illegitimate child baptised Alfred Bertram Charles Dewey on 4th February 1866 in Funtington, West Sussex, but no familial connection has been established with this Dewey! Incidentally Lawrence Bertram married Kathleen RICHMOND in Birmingham in 1949. They had at least one daughter, Marion H, who was born in Chatham. Lawrence Bertram died in Coventry in 2000. Ernest C married Florence Rose WADGE at St Mary’s, Portsea in 1902. By trade at the time he was a hosier. Florence’s father was an electrician. The young couple were living at 90 Drayton Road in North End in 1909. So far it has not been possible to establish with any certainty the abundance of the fruits of this union but they had at least three children, all born in Portsmouth; William Ernest Wadge in

1906 who died in infancy; Ernest C F in 1910 and Rene(e) in 1915. At the time of the wedding, Ernest C’s father was living at 8 Byron Road and he appears to have stayed there until his death in 1918. Ernest C’s mother, Harriett, was alive in 1921 still at the same address and seems to have stayed there throughout her widowhood. Ernest C’s wife’s family found its origins in Cornwall, where Wadge appears to be a highly localised surname, with significant concentrations on the edge of Bodmin Moor, between Launceston and Callington. Two adjacent parishes seem to be notably significant, namely Altarnum and Lewannick. Florence Rose could trace her ancestry back to Joseph Wadge whose father married a Mary TRUSCOTT , the surname of whom would appear to be locative, derived as it just happens, from a place in the parish of St Stephens by Launceston. This parish is not far from Altarnum and Lewannick. Florence’s great great grandfather, Josiah, the nephew of the miller, Truscott WADGE , a cordwainer by trade. Josiah left Cornwall in the second part of the 18th century and moved eastwards to be buried in Portsea in 1817. Other branches of the Wadge family left Cornwall after 1750 to find work in other parts of England. Some of the family moved to Lancashire there to find employment in the coal mines and cotton mills. While others went to work in the coal industry in County Durham, others, like so many in Cornwall at this time emigrated. Some did stay and one of these, a descendent of Truscott Wadge suffered a cruel fate. Selina or Selena Wadge

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