I’ve had a basic Willingale family tree on my personal site since at least 1998, but it was a post in my website guestbook by Keith Willingale on 16 December 2001 and a further post by Graham Richards on 12th January 2002 which formed the catalyst for the creation of the WFS.

The current committee met for the first time, with a few other interested Willingale descendants, in Lopping Hall on 2nd July 2002 and agreed to form the society, and we went on to hold our inaugural AGM at Willingale Village Hall on 7th December 2002.

Our initial printed family tree at the time of the 1st AGM contained just 539 people, although due to the logistics of printing the tree in time for the meeting we actually had just over 1,000 names in the database on the date of the meeting.

Since then we have been continually researching the history of the Willingale family and as I write this we have over 8565 names in the family tree, of which 1271 have the surname Willingale.

Our DNA project has proved that 4 of the 5 main branches of the Willingale family are related, however, our conventional genealogical research seems to show that ALL Willingales are in fact related. To unravel what’s happening in the Charles branch we really need to DNA test 2 or three more Willingale males.

Over the last 10 years we have collected a large archive of Willingale documents, photos and press cuttings, now totalling over 1,400 items, all of which are displayed in the members area of this website. We have also found a lot of other interesting facts such as :

• That a Willingale served in HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar
• Obtained an interesting insight into life at the start of the 1900 century through the finding of a large number of postcards & photographs from Thomas Samuel Willingale and his family.
• Discovered details of the Willingale imprisoned in the Tower of London
• The history of the Willingales in Maldon – where the majority of our family seem to have originated
• Information on the Steam Ship Willingale, which was wrecked with the loss of a large number of the crew.
• Discovered that two people with Willingale as their middle name (but are Willingale descendants) have been honoured by the Queen.
• The earliest Willingale we have details of is John Wyllyngale, who was a Fellow of Winchester College in 1432
• And discovered a huge amount about perhaps the most famous Willingale, Thomas, who was instrumental in the saving of Epping Forest.

To celebrate our anniversary we hope to hold another Willingale get together later in the year, if you have any thoughts on this or would like to attend please get in touch with the Committee – we will be holding a committee meeting to discuss an anniversary meeting amongst other things in February.

Related posts:

1. The Origins of the Willingale Family Society – a personal saga by Keith Willingale. Part 1
2. The Origins of the Willingale Family Society – a personal saga by Keith Willingale. Part 2

Unfortunately these articles have a couple of significant inaccuracies.

Thomas Willingale wasn’t responsible for founding the Commons Preservation Society (which still exists today as the Open Spaces Society). The CPS was founded by John Stuart Mill, Lord Eversley, Sir Robert Hunter and Octavia Hill. The latter two went on the found the National Trust.

Lord Eversley (who was then George Lefevre, a Liberal MP) along with Thomas Hughes, M.P (the lawyer and author best known for Tom Brown’s Schooldays) did however set up a fund for Thomas and acted as trustees, as the ongoing legal case needed funding and Thomas found it difficult to obtain work.

The other error is that it was Thomas’s son Samuel, along with Samuels cousins Alfred Willingale and William Higgins who were sent to jail, for 7 days, for injuring forest trees.

The article does however mention another incident relevant to the lopping saga that gets little mention elsewhere. In 1878, George Burney brought a large number of workmen into the forest to remove Maitland’s fences. Some sources indicate it was William Willingale (another of Thomas’s sons) who pointed out the errant fences to Burney’s men, indeed, so as not to implicate himself, William did not speak but merely pointed to the fences that needed removing!

No related posts.

One of the projects which could benefit from this scheme is Lopping Hall in Loughton. Lopping Hall was opened in 1884 to a design by local architect Edmond Egan, and is one of the most important public buildings in Loughton. It was paid for by the Corporation of London to compensate Loughton villagers for the loss of traditional rights to lop wood in Epping Forest, rights which were bought out when the management of the forest was taken over by the Corporation in 1878. The Willingale connection with this important building is Thomas Willingale, who was one of the most ardent supporters of Lopping. One of the rooms in the hall is called the Willingale Room and the hall contains a carved plaque in memory of Thomas.

Lopping Hall is now somewhat run down and in need of renovation. If successful in obtaining a CommunityForce award, funds would be used to renovate the front entrance of the building.

You can vote for Lopping Hall (or more correctly The Lopping Endowment, the charity which was set up in 1881 for the purpose of maintaining the hall) by following this link to the The Lopping Endowment page on the CommunityForce website.

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Steve Willingale from Australia is our latest tester and we hope to have his DNA results back early in the New Year.

Related posts:

1. DNA Project Update after 8 tests
2. Willingale Surname DNA Project Update
3. DNA Project Update after 7 tests

You can keep up to date of their progress by looking at the website http://www.willingalebells.org/

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Our main work over the last few months has been to review the censuses and fill in those census details missing from the family tree. This has helped us add a few more locations and occupations into the family tree. We have now recorded over 3,500 distinct locations of which over 3,300 have been geo-coded in the website database, these geo-coded locations are the ones which appear in the maps when viewing a person’s history in the online family tree.

We have also just restarted adding documents and photos into the Willingale archive on the website. We still have over 300 items to sort through. A lot of the remaining items relate to people we can’t positively identify in the tree or are duplicates of existing items, meaning we are taking a bit longer to double check items before they get uploaded.

We have also had a major find of interesting items relating to Thomas Willingale, the Lopper, and these will be written up in the next few journals.

Related posts:

1. Two substantial loose family branches moved over to the main tree
2. Willingale Surname DNA Project Update

Martin’s DNA matches the ‘Willingale’ DNA profile and provides confirmation that the ‘Thomas’ branch of the family is related to the ‘John’, ‘William’ and ‘Samuel’ branches.

The latest results can be seen here, WFS members can see the full analysis here.

Related posts:

1. DNA Project Update after 7 tests
2. Willingale Surname DNA Project Update
3. DNA Confusion

Related posts:

1. December Journal
2. Website Update

Willingale Billhook: The billhook should soon be on display in the new museum due to open next to the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge in Chingford.

The History of the Willingales: A summary of the early Willingales from our own research.

The Lopping Times: A summary of the articles written up in our twice yearly journal which is sent out to WFS members.

The Two Churches of Willingale Village: A short history of the churches in Willingale Village.

I’ve also added some additional photos to the Willingale Village Gallery

Related posts:

1. Willingale Surname DNA Project Update
2. The Origins of the Willingale Family Society – a personal saga by Keith Willingale. Part 1

Historically, armorial bearings were first used by feudal lords and knights in the mid-12th century on battlefields as a way to identify allied from enemy soldiers, later arms were adopted by other social classes such as the clergy and later still by peasants and commoners.

It’s a common misbelief that families have the right to such a crest or Coat of Arms, however Coats of Arms are actually awarded to individuals and not families, although they can pass through the male line, usually with small amendments to differentiate each owner.

In the UK the College of Arms regulates Coats of Arms and proof of direct descendancy is required for the legal right to bear an ancestor’s coat of arms.

Some years ago I photographed a Willingale Coat of Arms and the most recent enquiry, prompted me to do some digging in an attempt to prove or disprove its authenticity.

We have traced our family tree back to the 1500s but have found no record of anyone using a Coat of Arms. Initially I looked at some German Coats of Arms for names like Winterthur and Villinger as some sources state Willingale is an anglicised version of these. These arms look nothing like the Arms I photographed at Lopping Hall.

I then turned to some of the early spellings of Willingale and found that a commercial ‘History’ of the Willingale name gave a description of the Willingale Coat of Arms but stated ‘The arms depicted here have been quartered with Willing and Gale’ These arms matched the photograph, but the description seems to indicate there has never been a ‘Willingale’ Coat of Arms, and to get round this problem someone decided to merge the Arms of two completely different names to create the ‘Willingale Coat of Arms’. A quick Google confirmed these Arms contained elements of both a Willing and Gale Arms.

I think from this we can conclude the Willingale Crest I photographed has no link to anyone with the Willingale family name.

Related posts:

1. The Origins of the Willingale Family Society – a personal saga by Keith Willingale. Part 1