Francis Willmer McAulay (FWM) was born in 1891 in Aylesby to parents Samuel and Maud Mary McAulay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Francis was the eldest child of three, and the only son. His sisters Phyllis Maud and Grace Marion died in the 1970s\/80s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Francis inherited the Willmer name from his mothers side. Maud Mary was Maud Mary Pocock before her marriage to Samuel McAulay, and her own parents (FWM’s maternal grandparents) were the Rev Thomas Willmer Pocock and Elizabeth Rose Pocock. Maud Mary was one of six children, and her two brother both inherited the Willmer middle name too. She went on to name her own son Francis with the Willmer name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FWM’s father Samuel’s own family history is tied to the village of Aylesby through a couple of generations. FWM’s grandfather was also a Samuel – Rev Samuel McAulay – and he married into the local Sowerby family through marriage to Jane Annie Sowerby, eldest daughter to Francis Sowerby. Although Francis Sowerby was born in Yorkshire, at the time of his marriage in 1826 he was living and farming in Aylesby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Francis Sowerby was an Aylesby farmer. His daughter Jane Annie married locally to Rev Samuel Sowerby; whose son (another Samuel) was farming in Aylesby and then FWM came along in 1891. Francis Willmer McAulay was a fourth generation Aylebsy local.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both of FWM’s grandfathers were Reverends too, so the church of St Lawrence has played a very special part of his story, so it is only fitting that memorials to FWM reside there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n