The Wheel Thing

from I'd Rather Be In Deeping July 2021

Found in Deeping

When you mention cycles in the Deepings these days the first name that comes to mind is Terry Wright, who first had a shop in Church St, Deeping St James, moving to the site where Scholes now is and then to a store on what used to be Todds Garage site (now home to Devonports) and then more recently to the larger store opposite before moving to Werrington.

But if you had said cycles in the Deepings in the late nineteenth century then Brightman would have been the name on your lips! Robert Brightman was born in 1865 in Bourne and became an apprentice to Elijah Greenfield, wheelwright and implement maker in Halfleet, Market Deeping. In 1892, he married Ann Tales, who was a member of the ill-fated local family who had been publicans at The Wheel Public House, Stamford Road for a decade in the mid 1870s. Robert took over as inn keeper at the Wheel at the same time as carrying on his business as a wheel maker. When the Licensing Board closed the pub in 1907 Robert was successful in a claim for compensation and received £145. which he used to further finance his cycle business. He purchased the old Wheel Pub from the Philips Brewery and lived there with his wife and children and his mother Jane. His shop was remembered as a rendezvous for many a friendly chat. In his spare time he was a bell ringer at St Guthlac’s and taught many to ring as well, including Horace Day who became Captain of the belfry. His oldest son John (b. 1895) worked for Richard Stroud at the Distillery after he left school and emigrated with Richard when he went to work for A.M. Todd Distillery at Mentha USA, in 1909. John’s brothers Alfred (b. 1900) and Arthur (b. 1903) emigrated to the USA shortly after him.

Their sister Annie (b.1910) married Robert Dack, son of William Dack of Barholm, in a ceremony that was described as ‘exceptionally pretty’ at St Guthlac’s Church in 1936. ‘The sun shone gloriously on the bride who was charmingly attired in an ivory satin gown with an embroidered veil and wreath of orange blossom with shoes and hose to tone. She wore a string of pearls, a gift of the bridegroom, and carried a bouquet of pink and lemon roses with trailing fern.

‘The bridesmaids were Kathleen Hornsby and Claire Wright, friends of the bride who looked charming in their flowered lemon georgette dresses with brown hats and shoes to tone. They carried bouquets of double pink tulips and wore pale lemon and green crystal necklaces, the gifts of the bridegroom. Mr Robert Baldwin, a friend of the groom, was best man. The bride was given away by her brother Charles.

‘A reception was held at the bride’s home where some thirty guests were entertained and Mr & Mrs Dack afterwards left by rail for their honeymoon in Yorkshire. The bride’s travelling attire consisting of a fawn costume with hat and shoes to match and a fur tie, gift of the bridegroom. The couple made their home in Barholm.’

Robert Brightman died in 1938, leaving £416 in his will. His son William (b.1906) had been blinded as a child and so the business was inherited by Charles (b. 1913) and the property later became the Riverside Garage.

Although the first mention of The Wheel Public House is in 1826 there is every chance that it was where John Creet had made his home when he moved to Market Deeping from Pinchbeck, signing a legal settlement to allow him to move parishes in 1722. The family were blacksmiths and wheelwrights by trade and in 1826 John Creet (b. 1791), son of Thomas and Grace Creet, was licensee of the pub where he lived with his wife Lucy (née Blake) and son John (b. 1819). They also owned the Bluebell Inn in Church St, Market Deeping.

John junior took over the pub on his father’s death in 1834. He married Ann Carter at Pickworth in 1839 and the couple went on to have seven children, two dying as infants. They employed Maria Stephenson as a house servant and had a lodger, William Addy. Disaster struck in 1849 when they lost wheat, straw and haystacks along with a range of hovels and a large quantity of wood amounting to £200 in a fire. In 1855 more wood was lost, this time to theft, when two days after the Wood Fair three posts were taken by George Hickling. The defendant had been caught in the act of loading the posts onto a boat by Mr Shearcroft from Long Sutton who had been staying at Mr Swan’s, whose house overlooked Creet’s yard and the river. John Creet alerted the Constable, Mr Connington, and they had pursued Hickling to Deeping St James where they found him asleep in the boat. They took him to the Railway Tavern where he violently resisted the Constable, attempting to hit him with a poker. The landlord disarmed him but the help of three others was needed before he could be handcuffed. He was sentenced to two months’ hard labour.

After his wife Ann’s death in 1856, John married Elizabeth Carter in Catton, Norfolk. They had eight daughters and one son, William, who died at the age of two. Meanwhile his oldest son by Ann, John, had become a teenager. He had been involved in an unfortunate incident when, one Sunday morning, instead of attending church. went into his father’s fields with Thomas Cole and William Count, an apprentice to a watchmaker in Deeping, tenting birds. William held a gun, loaded with powder and paper for wadding and while reaching a stick from a hedge with the gun towards him, it discharged and inflicted a wound on his left side. Initially he didn’t suffer much but it caused internal injuries and he died after great suffering.

John and Elizabeth had a prosperous lifestyle; they farmed 70 acres and employed two men as well as keeping The Wheel. They had a brew house, two

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stables, a workshop and a garden. Son John (b. 1840) had married Elizabeth Lake in Market Deeping in 1868 and left the town to work as a plate layer on the railway in Yorkshire.

In 1871 John, now 52 years old, and likely suffering from ill health, sold three lots of his property at the White Horse Inn with Mr Metcalf the Auctioneer. As well as The Wheel with the stables and out buildings there were two lots of land on Millfield. The Wheel was purchased by Joseph Philips Brewery of Stamford. While the sale was going through John died, leaving effects of £200. His wife Elizabeth continued to run the pub. In 1876 she re-married, Samuel Searle, boot and shoe maker who lived and worked in the Market Place, Market Deeping.

Matthew Tales from Bourne Fen then took over as the landlord, he had married John and Ann’s daughter Mary (b. 1844) in 1866 she was working as a cook to the Marston family, brewers of the Market Place, Market Deeping. The couple went on to have six children. In 1876 Matthew was found guilty of giving incorrect measures and fined two shillings and sixpence and costs. In 1887 he was up before the bench in Bourne again, this time for assault on his wife. No corroborative evidence was found and the case was dismissed, but he and Mary had to leave The Wheel. The family moved first to Halfleet with Matthew working as an agricultural labourer, and then they probably moved to Yorkshire. In 1910 Matthew took three of his children with him to New Hamburg, Canada, returning in 1914 to collect his wife and remaining children. He set sail on the RMS Empress of Ireland which suffered a collision in thick fog with the Norwegian Collier SS Storstad, sinking in the mouth of the St Lawrence River. Although the ship was equipped with watertight compartments and in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster, more than enough lifeboats, she floundered in only 14 minutes. Of the 1,477 people on board, 1,012 died, Matthew Tales being one of them. This was the worst peacetime marine disaster in Canadian history.

Jacob and Maria Congreve then took over at The Wheel, Jacob also carrying on the trade of wheelwright, but the family moved on to Husbands Bosworth, Market Harborough, and then the Brightmans took over. And the rest, as they say, is history!