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From: Gillian Ford <>
Subject: Re: [HWE] Wastell - Mayhieu, Mayhue, Mahue
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 15:30:31 +1000
References: <449B98CA-B21F-4A3E-9E9A-30A2CED3A664@bigpond.net.au><001201c72ea7$251ecc60$3486d956@toshiba01>
In-Reply-To: <001201c72ea7$251ecc60$3486d956@toshiba01>


Tony, very fascinating and helpful. I looked for you on google and
see you are an expert in the field. Your answer had to be the best
I've ever received re: family history.

I suspected the Wastells might not be Huguenots even though my father
thought they were. He wasn't very educated, though manually a genius
(cabinet maker), but had been told about the Huguenots by the family.
Other Wastell descendants thought so too. Looked on all the sites and
the name didn't come up. There are loads of Wastells and Waistells in
Yorkshire from long ago. I can't find a link between them and this
John Wastell who m. in 1730, though there were Yorkshire Wastells in
London at the time.

I can trace back in my history to John Wastell m. in 1730 and have
followed all his children down the censuses, some to the current day.
This was a massive amount of work, but he really only had two sons
whose descendants could be followed. The other son Peter Wastell
married Mary Delahaize (in a Huguenot church), and they had four
children recorded, but I can't find any marriages or descendents for
them. With the other two children, I think I have been able to follow
most down to the 1900s, some to this day. At least of three of John's
sons and quite a few of the grandchildren were silkweavers. But I did
wonder whether John worked for his father-in-law Peter Mayhew and
became a silkweaver rather than come from a family in the trade. The
silk weavers/dyers go down to the fourth generation and then phase
out. John the elder and John his son went bankrupt in about 1769 I
think it was (in the London Times). Recorded in great details as they
were selling the silk fabric.

Because it's a relatively uncommon name, I think I could do something
interesting with the history as four generations: my great-great-
great gr-father, great-great, great-, and grandfather are all in the
UK censuses 1841 to 1901. My mother lived to 96 and just died in
November. Her memory helped.

I have just done what I can on the Internet with records, and I am
now ready to look at other issues, such as the ?French connection.

I am going to do a graduate diploma in Local, Family and Applied
History this year from an Aus university. I hope to get the tools to
do some further study in Britain on the family. Hence my interest. I
am a neophyte and appreciate all the help I can get.

There was a famous Samuel Wastell in London (1600s), a gold smith.
Also a a silver piercer, Joseph Wastell (no birth record). A Martha
Rebecca Wastell (married to John Wastell customs officer) was a
silver piercer. One of the grandsons of John Wastell (& Ann Mayhew)
was a jeweller. I have tried to follow trade connections like this.
Samuel Wastell was considered English, not one of the Huguenot gold
smiths, so that is interesting.

Hi Gillian

Interesting but problematical with the family names. Firstly, there
are no Huguenot names as such - like Catholic Smith/Jones' there were
also Protestante Smith/Jones' so whilst Wastell may be derived from a
French or Walloon name, it wasn't Huguenot per se.

There are 64 references to the WASTELL family in the Hug Soc of GB
Quarto Society records. It also appears that some of the Wastell
family members may, at some time, been inmates of the French Hospital
(La Providence) in London. The name only appears once in 120 years
odd of the Hug Soc of GB's Proceedings. Interestingly, the name does
not appear in the records of the Weaver's Company 1610-1730 which the
Society published back in the 1930s.

And to confuse matters even more, there are variations of the name in
the Hug Soc of GB's Naturalization records with the names Wassell,
Wastell, Whystell, Weasell, which are all cross-referenced as being
interchangeable, one as early as 8 November 1553. The name is also
recorded in the Return of Strangers for the Metropolis of 1593, two
brothers, brewers, being recorded as being members of the English
Church and having been in England upwards of 30 years but to cause
even more confusion was originally spelled USASSELL.

In addition, there are many references to the WASTELL family in the
Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica (published in the 1840s)
which go back way before Huguenot times and also a number of
references to the name as being a Master Mason employing up to 60
other Masons (pre Huguenot but could be Walloon) in England in the
1540s, all contained in Gould's History of Freemasonry.

There was an enquiry in Huguenot Families about this family a little
while ago with the name of another WASTELL researcher indicating that
the family may be Walloon rather than Huguenot, originating in
Tournai which was then in the Spanish Netherlands.

As for the MAYHEW family, you really cannot get to the bottom of that
one - there are just so many as to make any meaningful search
pointless. That said, there are several references to MAYHEW and
variants in the Weaver's Company records, viz MAHIEU MAHEWE, MAHUE,
LE MAYHEW.

Hope this helps in some way

Regards

Tony Fuller




On 03/01/2007, at 4:02 AM, Gillian Ford wrote:
> My family name was Wastell, and I have traced my father's family back
> to John Wastell who married Ann Mayhew, Mayhieu or Mahue in 1730.
>
> Ann's father, Peter Mayhew, was said to be a silk weaver as was his
> son-in-law John Wastell, and quite a few of John's descendants were
> silk weavers and dyers. My great-grandfather James b.1827 was a silk
> dyer, for instance, and so was his brother Daniel.
>
> I have been trying to find out the parentage of John Wastell, have
> just written to the LMA (London Metropolitan Archives about it. Was
> he a Huguenot, one of the silkweavers from Lyons in France, or did he
> marry into his father-in-law's business (i.e., born in England).
>
> The name Wastell I learned many years ago was a French Huguenot name,
> transliterated from the French Guastell. Coming from the singular of
> the word "gâteau" for cakes. Wastell was a cake or bread of fine,
> white flour. Wastell bread or bredde is mentioned in Chaucer's Nun's
> tale. There is also the theory that it came from a place in Yorkshire
> called Wasdale.
>
> There were Wastells around in England from at least 1100 A.D., and a
> number lived in London in the 1500 and 1600s. But as far as I now
> know there is no birth record for John Wastell.
>
> Any light or interest out there?
>
> Gillian Wastell Ford
> Australia
>
> -------------------------------
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