William White and Mary Cockey

William White junior was born in 1705 in Sydenham, Oxfordshire, England to parents William White (b 1684) and Elisabeth.

William was baptised at Sydenham on 1 September 1705. He was one of nine children.

Sydenham baptisms 1705

At the age of 23 William married Mary Shelton, nee Cockey, a widow, at Wheatfield, Oxfordshire on 26 January 1728. (This may have been William’s second marriage to someone named Mary as the two children below were born before this marriage).

Mary Cockey was stated to be a widow of Watlington.  Mary had previously married Richard Shelton in 1722 at Watlington and one child John born 1725 with him.  Her husband Richard Shelton, was born in 1699 at Watlington, and died there in 1724.

William and a Mary had two children –

  1. William b 1722 Wheatfield
  2. Charles b 1725 Wheatfield d 1802 Chalford, marr Jane Cooper. 4 children.

William and Mary lived in the tiny hamlet of Wheatfield and their two children were baptised there.

St Andrews, Wheatfield, Oxfordshire

Wheatfield is a civil parish and deserted medieval village about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Thame in Oxfordshire.

Few of Wheatfield’s buildings remain today except the Church of England parish church of Saint Andrew, the former rectory and the former outbuildings of the no-longer-standing manor house. The 1801 Census recorded 89 inhabitants and the 1831 Census recorded 105. In 1784, poor children in Wheatfield were reported to be “schooled by a weekly donation”. A Sunday school was started in 1790, and restarted in 1824.

William White died in Emmington in March 1729 aged just 24 years old, and was buried there at the church of St Nicholas on 16 March 1729. You can read more about Emmington on his father William’s page here.

St Nicholas, Emmington, Oxfordshire