Wilfred Roebuck and wife Nellie (nee Welch)

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Wilfred was the second son of George Thomas Roebuck I and Annie Louisa (nee Moore).  He was born on 25th August 1899 at Canklow Road, Rotherham, South Yorkshire. 

Before we move on, a few notes about that locality and why the family was there.  Canklow was then a village outside Rotherham, which had two facilities: an earlier corn mill and the Rotherham Main Colliery (coal mine), pictured left.  The colliery was sunk (created) between 1890 and 1893.  The owners, John Brown & Co of Sheffield, established a school  which catered for 145 pupils from the pit cottages also built nearby.  Wilfred's grandfather Obadiah was a coal miner, and so was his father George during his early career.  Also his maternal grandfather Francis Moore had been a tin miner in Wales, and had migrated here a couple of decades before. 

The mine employed 2000 people in its heyday before the First World War.  This site was apparently a bad choice for mining, as it was liable to flooding.  In 1891, a few years before Wilfred was born, there was an accident where eight men fell off a wooden platform down the shaft, and only two survived, and were awarded the Albert Medal for their heroic efforts.  Eventually the coal became harder to mine, and the colliery declined during the 1930s and 1940s to about 300 men, and it closed in 1954. 

So this is the background into which Wilfred was born, where miners lived in rented pit cottages, were employed casually by the day, and sometimes had to move around to different collieries to find work.  Possibly because of the Great War of 1914-18, his background becomes quite different...

Left:  This is the earliest photo we have of Wilf as a young boy, admiring one of his baby brothers in their back garden.  Must say, the house looks better than a pit cottage.  The baby is said to be Edgar, which if true would put Wilf at about 15 years old.

Right: This studio photo shows Wilf a little older, immaculately dressed and sporting his gold watch and chain.  One wonder what age he had got to, or what was the occasion for this photo.  Also one wonders what is the badge on his lapel, fairly likely denoting membership of a club or society of some sort.  Wilf was quite musical, and became a church organist after the family moved to Chorley.

Left: This photo of Wilf is extracted from the family group seen elsewhere on these pages. Probably not the same occasion, as he is not wearing his watch.

Right: Looking smart as ever, another studio photo of Wilf, sporting a cummerbund around his waist, which is now housing the gold watch.  It is marked as being taken in 1922, some years after he came back from the First World War.  His career in that war, with photos, is featured in the page "First World War Soldiers" elsewhere in the main index.

Left: This photo was taken in The Crescent, Chorley, where the Roebuck family had moved in the early 1920s as a result of father George taking a job as a local area manager for an insurance firm.

Wilf is on the right, and his brother-in-law Spencer Langley, who married sister Grace, on the left.  Perhaps some enthusiast could identify the bikes for us!

Right: Wilf as a major guest at his brother George's wedding in 1924.  The full photo appears on George's page.

Right: Now it's his turn.  Wilf married Ellen Hannah Welch (Nellie) on 15th July 1926, at the Trinity Methodist Church in Chorley, Lancashire.  Wilf is in the dark suit on the back row, and Nellie, wearing the veil, seated at the front.  The only other person identified is a four-year old Cynthia Roebuck next to the bride.  They then set up home at 9 Letchworth Drive, Chorley.

Nellie was born on 23rd December 1904 at 56 Chapel Street, Chorley, Lancs, just near where the railway crosses it, where her parents had a coal business.  Cynthia remembered watching the cart full of sacks of coal go around the streets, drawn by a big black carthorse called Blossom.  In the 1960s we remember that property, then a cafe within a line of shops.  Now it has gone, to make way for the main road bypass and other development in Chorley.  Nellie was a teacher before she had her family. 

Left: The only other older photo we have of Wilf is this one, taken at Blackpool (note the Tower in the top left).

Wilf and Nellie had two children, Eric James, born on 3rd February 1928 at 9 Letchworth Drive, and Annie Hilda (known as Hilda), born on 31st March 1932 in the same place. Both have children and grandchildren, documented on other pages.

By profession, Wilf was originally an engineer, which he may have followed during his military service during the Great War.  He certainly went on to become a Chief Designer with the Royal Air Force, and he and Nellie lived in various places in the South East of England, then Ferring on the Sussex coast, then Sheringham on the Norfolk coast, before settling in Nottingham to be near to Eric and family.  It is probably this geographical separation which explains the subsequent absence of photos in Cynthia's album, although there are some in the Modern Photos section to follow.

Wilf died in 1988 at Nottingham, falling asleep in his chair at home. Nellie subsequently became ill, and died later that year, having been in a nursing home.

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