JC Wimhurst

John Charles Wimhurst was born December 28, 1864 in the central area of London, England called Clerkenwell. He was the first son of John Charles Wimhurst and Mary Webb.

He had one older sister, one younger sister and two younger brothers. At the age of 16 he worked as a porter while his father was a fishmonger. John's mother died in 1882. His older sister Sarah married on March 25, 1883, and he married Ada Rose (Matthews) Wimhurst on July 1, 1883 in Whitechapel, just after his father died in April in the pub that he was running at the time.

Whitechapel features in Charles Dickens's Pickwick Papers (chapter 22) as the location of the Bull Inn, where the Pickwickians take a coach to Ipswich. En route, driving along Whitechapel Road, Sam Weller opines that it is "not a very nice neighbourhood" and notes the correlation between poverty and the abundance of oyster stalls here.  - From Wikipedia - April 12, 2019.

By the year 1891, John and Ada had two of their four children. They had moved out of London to Charlwood, Surrey and John had taken the occupation of Assurance Agent and Grocer. In 1901, with four children they were living in Peas Pottage, England and John was a Grocer Shopkeeper.

On February 27, 1907, the family except for John Jr. boarded the seven year old SS Lake Erie and headed for Canada. They arrived in Saint John, New Brunswick in the Bay of Fundy on March 12, 1907. On May 11 of that year, the oldest daughter, Ada Rose married Ernest Nicholl in New Liskeard, Ontario.

The 1911 census shows the rest of the family, including John Jr. settled on the family farm in Ingram Township outside of Englehart, Ontario. In 1923, the farm was offered for sale in the Porcupine Advance in Timmins, Ontario. In 1925 John offered a four bedroom house for rent in Timmins, and seemed to be partnered with his brother-in-law James Johnson in renting the place. James was still in Timmins but John was back in Englehart in 1929 when he offered the house for sale as a good investment property.

John died on October 3, 1940 at the age of 75.