Leonard Langdale Wrathall (1892

Leonard Langdale Wrathall (1892 - 1928)

In 1999, Grahame Pike related that he was doing research for the South Australian Museum involving Leonard Langdale Wrathall , who came to Australia via Papua New Guinea, where he as engaged in Oil exploration for the Australian Government in 1914 as a Geologist. He was born in Yorkshire, apparently. Leonard's colleague, Ernest Sterne Usher, the main subject of Grahame's research, was born in 1879 and the two men look in the photographs to be about the same age. Perhaps anyone with info on Leonard will send Grahame an e-mail at gpike(at)camtech(DOt)net(DOt)au .

In April 2002, Derek Wrathall contributed the following:

I have looked at the page concerning Leonard Langdale Wrathall and am sure that the obituary of LEONARD L. WRATHALL (The Keighley News, Saturday 19th May 1928, page 6) is for the man that G. Pike is researching. However, as he died aged 36 in 1928, that made his birth year 1892 and in the St. Catherine's House Index is the entry for him in the 1st quarter of 1892, registered at Keighley. I have also looked for the birth of his father, Charles Coulton Wrathall, but without success, I did however find his marriage in the 2nd quarter of 1889 again at Keighley. This rather eliminates any connection with Hornby. Charles Coulton Wrathall died in his 75th year according to his obituary so he was born around 1863. I will look again at the St.CHI around that time when I am next in Halifax. A small point, but I noticed that C. C. W.'s residence at the time of his death was called Langdale.

Derek also found 3 other items on Leonard Langdale and his father Charles Coulton :

In December 2002, Derek Wrathall contributed the following about Leonard Langdale Wrathall's family:

Last week I was going through a lot of the copies of letters and papers given to me by Jim Wrathall of Garstang [Roy Wrathall's brother James Stephen, who died in Garstang August 15, 2002] when I first started looking into our family history. One caught my eye, being from Josephine Wrathall of New South Wales, Australia, and I will quote extracts from it:
I will give you all the information I can as my husband, David, was killed in a tractor accident 18 years ago and was an only child. He was not well informed about his relatives and his father, Leonard Langdale Wrathall, died when he was 8 years old in Timor on an oil search expedition for Timor Oil ( I think). His Mother, Nellie Medwin Wrathall (Williams) was Australian but David was born in London on 16 July 1918, registered at Brentford, County Middlesex. At the end of the war Leonard retirned to exploring for oil as a geologist travelling all over Europe and Finally in Timor where he died of blackwater fever, a result of malaria, at the age of 36 years. Nellie and David came back to Australia to live with her mother and stepfather. Leonard's parents were cotton millers in Filey, Yorkshire [south of Scarborough, on the east coast] and he had a sister, Mollie, whom we met in 1956 on a visit to England. Mollie lived in Scarborough but was a widow and I have no record of her married name.....................................I have no other records to draw on and the only other inquiry I have had was 45 years ago when Mrs. De Salis arrived at my home, then in Mosman, Sydney, to ask if we were related as she had been a Wrathall, but my husband couldn't help..........................My son, Thomas Charles Wrathall has 4 sons to carry on the name and I am sure the boys will be keen to know more of the Wrathall origins as time goes by.
This letter was written to Cathie Sibbick in 1995. I rang Cathie to see if she had had more recent contact but she has had to put family history aside for a while.... Around 1995 she had regular contact with Jim Wrathall and had written to many Wrathalls, including a number in Australia. With her husband she had visited Australia and New Zealand and had in fact had her photograph taken by the Wrathall sign at Mangonui. I will write to Josephine and pass on copies of the newspaper cuttings re Leonard Langdale Wrathall and his parents.

Mrs. De Salis was Leonard's second cousin (see Descendants of William WRATHALL of Linton).

Hamish Lonsdale-Wrathall's transcription of Wrathall birth, marriage and death records for New South Wales confirms that Leonard married Nellie Williams in Mosman in 1915.

In Jan. 2003, Derek Wrathall mentioned the following about Leonard's sister, who is identified as Miss E. Wrathall in his obituary:

Regarding the sister of Leonard L Wrathall, I think this would be the Ethel Maud born 1890 1st quarter and registered in Keighley - from the St. Catherine's House Index. There doesn't seem to be much consistency as to what "Molly" is a diminutive for. In the Wrathall/De Salis tree I have been looking at, I note that Kathleen Mary Garston Wrathall was known as Molly.

In Mar. 2009, Tim Charlton [charlton(at)manson(dot)demon(dot)co(dot)uk] sent a document with all the references to Leonard Langdale Wrathall that he found in the Argus (Melbourne) newspaper:

I came across your web page on Leonard Langdale Wrathall whilst researching the history of oil exploration in Timor. There are several references to him in the Argus newspaper of Melbourne from his appointment as company geologist of the Timor Petroleum Company Limited in November 1925 up to his death in April 1928. The references can be found at the following website: http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ .

If any of your family have any documents relating to his time in Timor (photographs, technical geological data or notebooks) I would be very interested to see them. I am a consultant/academic geologist specialising in the geology of Timor and surrounding islands. Timor is still pretty much terra incognita, so any old data has potential interest.

In May 2009, Tim Charlton mentioned the following:

I have come across a couple more documents referring to L. L. Wrathall, one referring to his appointment as a petroleum geologist/assistant to Dr. Arthur Wade in Papua in 1913, and a second documenting his enlistment in the military in October 1915. Visit RecordSearch - National Archives of Australia and search "Wrathall".

Note: this website may not work well with older browsers. However, it gives 28 results for "Wrathall", including 4 or 5 for L. L. Wrathall and family. Many of the records have digitised copies of the original documents.

Charles Coulton Wrathall

The L.D.S. FamilySearch site has the following data from 1881 British Census of Yorkshire:

Name	Relation	Marital Status	Gender	Age	Birthplace	Occupation
Ellen WRATHALL	Head	Other	Female	37	Dacre Ripon, York, England	Dressmaker
Charles Coulton WRATHALL	Son	Unmarried	Male	17	Darley Hampsthwaite, York, England	Foreman In A Worsted Factory
Mary Jane WRATHALL	Daur	Unmarried	Female	15	Steeton Kildwick, York, England	Spinner In Worsted Factory
Ada WRATHALL	Daur		Female	12	Steeton Kildwick, York, England	Spinner In Worsted Factory
John Benson WRATHALL	Son		Male	10	Steeton Kildwick, York, England	Scholar
Thomas WRATHALL	Son		Male	8	Steeton Kildwick, York, England	Scholar
Alice WRATHALL	Daur		Female	5	Steeton Kildwick, York, England	Scholar

(Dacre, Darley and Hampswaithe are villages northwest of Harrogate. Steeton is northwest of Keighley, which is 20 miles southwest of Harrogate.)
Source Information:
Dwelling:13 Lane End
Census Place:Keighley, York, England
Family History Library Film:1342038
Public Records Office ReferenceRG11
Piece / Folio4346 / 32
Page Number27

In Sept. 2005, there was this entry on Colin Hinson's page The Craven Household Almanack Directory of 1911:

WRATHALL CC, The Elms (STEETON)

In May 2009, FreeBMD had the following record:

Births, Mar. 1864: Rathhall, Charles Colton; Pateley Bridge; Folio 9a, Page 68

Pateley Bridge District includes Dacre, and formerly included Darley and Hampswaithe.

In July 2009, Mills & Work Places had the following section:

Fleece Mills
..... Keighley's biggest mill built 1820 by William Sugden ..... Mr. Charles Coulton Wrathall of Langdale, Thornhill Road, Steeton ... was for several years in business on his own account at Fleece Mills, Keighley.

See also the obituary of Charles Coulton Wrathall.

Richard Coulton Wrathall

It is likely that Charles Coulton's father was Richard Coulton Wrathall, who was not listed in the 1881 census because he died in 1880. In Dec. 2003, Derek Wrathall found some additional data regarding this family:

The Parish Registers for Kildwick( St. Andrews) list all of the children in the 1881 census record above, excepting Charles Coulton, as children of Richard Coulton Wrathall and Ellen of Steeton.
The St. Catherine's House Marriage Index lists Richard Coulton Wrathall as being married in 1864, first quarter, in Knaresborough.
The St. Catherine's House Death Index lists Richard Coulton Wrathall's death in 1880, second quarter, in Keighley; age: 50. This means he would have been 20 or 21 in 1851.
The 1851 Yorkshire/Lancashire Census of Steeton with Eastburn has a listing for Richard Wrathall, 21, born in Burnsall approx. 1830, as the son of John, born in Skipton approx. 1794/5, and Mary, born in Rippon approx. 1796/7.
The 1841 Yorkshire/Lancashire Census of Burnsall Village has a listing for Richard Wrathall, 11, born in Burnsall; John, born in Yorkshire approx. 1795/6; and Mary, born in Yorkshire approx. 1800/1801.
The Burnsall Parish Register (1813-1900) has this marriage record:
Feb. 22, 1826: John Wrathall, Farmer, & Mary Hall, Spinster, both of Burnsall
although there is no record for Richard's birth.

This indicates that Richard Coulton's father was probably John Wrathall (b. 1795), the second son of John Wrathall and Elizabeth Leech, as listed in the Descendants of John Wrathall and Anne Pickersgill. Derek found further evidence about the family of Richard and Charles C. Wrathall, which he describes here:

[In Dec. '03] I spent an hour in Keighley library. I first looked at the 1871 census for Steeton and found the family at 9 Lane End, Steeton as follows

Richard Wrathall - Head - Married - 42 - Maltsters Assistant - born Burnsall
Ellen Wrathall - Wife - Married - 27 - born Ripon
Charles C. Wrathall - Son - 8 - Scholar - born Darley
Mary Jane Wrathall - Dau - 5 - Scholar - born Steeton
Ada Wrathall - Dau - 3 - born Steeton
John B. Wrathall - 4m - born Steeton
John Wrathall - Brother - Unmarried - 34 - Ag. lab. - born Burnsall
I also looked at the 1881 census on film and found Ellen as Head of household with W (i.e. widow) as marital status, not "Other". However, I am confident that Richard Coulton Wrathall and his wife Ellen were the parents of Charles Coulton Wrathall and that CCW was born either just before or just after they were married.

In Jan. 2004, Derek learned the following about Richard Coulton Wrathall's family:

To hopefully throw more light on the Richard Coulton Wrathall family, I sent for a copy of his marriage certificate, which arrived this morning. I had hoped that the full addresses of Richard and his bride would be given, and give a pointer as to where to look for the registration of the birth of Charles Coulton Wrathall.

Richard married Ellen Hall on 16 January 1864 at the Parish Church of Hampsthwaite. He was stated to be a bachelor, of full age, farmer, of Keighley, father, John Wrathall, farmer, and she was a spinster, aged 19, of Darley, father Benson Hall, labourer. The witnesses were Thomas Airton and Mary Longbottom. Richard could not write and there is just his mark. In my letter to the registrar I explained about Charles Coulton and my inability to find a record of his birth. On the compliment slip accompanying the certificate the registrar had written, "We have been unable to find any trace of Charles C Wrathall in Darley or Harrogate". I wonder now if his birth was ever registered.

The forename of Ellen's father explains why Charles' brother was called Thomas Benson Wrathall, but it crossed my mind that Richard and Ellen could have been cousins, given that her maiden name and her mother-in-law's maiden name were the same - Hall. Otherwise, I wonder how they got together, given the distance between Keighley and Darley.