james woodhams
Subject : James Woodhams (b 1809 – d ?)
Researchers : Julie Cameron & Sue Driscoll
Unknown end for strong West Horsley family man
James Woodhams was brought up in a large family in West Horsley, Surrey. Working as a labourer, he went on to raise his own family but remained at his widowed mother’s home with his wife Jane and children. His family were strong, all seven of his children reaching adulthood with two of the sons serving in the Life Guards. However, following the deaths of one of the sons and then his wife, James was an inmate of the Guildford Union Workhouse before he disappeared without trace.
James was born around 1809 in West Horsley, about 5 miles (8km) east of Guildford, and baptised at the village’s St Mary’s Church on New Year’s Eve that year 1. He was the middle child of nine known children for John Woodham (the family acquired the ‘s’ on Woodham some years later) and Charlotte who had married in Bidborough, Kent in 1800 2. 
They moved to West Horsley some time following the birth of their first child William that same year.
James’ father John was noted as a labourer on the baptism records of his last two children and would undoubtedly have needed his children to start work as soon as possible to bring in enough money for the family. With virtually no schooling for the lower classes in the first half of the 19th Century, James, his brothers and maybe even his sisters could have been working by the age of 9, perhaps even earlier 3.
James was about 17 when his father died in September 1826, aged 50 4. James’ mother would certainly have relied even more on her children’s help to stay out of the West Horsley Workhouse – the Guildford Union Workhouse was still over ten years away from being built 5.
In September 1831, James, aged about 22, married Jane Worsfold, some two years younger, at the nearby village of Shere 6, 7. She was the daughter of maltster James and Elizabeth Worsfold who had given their consent for the marriage as Jane was a ‘minor’ (under 21).
Although James and Jane were soon raising a family of their own, the 1841 Census showed that they remained living at James’ own family home at The Street, West Horsely with his widowed mother Charlotte, who was head of the household 8, 9.
James and Jane already had five children aged under 10. Two of James’ younger brothers, Richard and George, ‘agricultural labourers’ like James, were living there too.
James’ mother Charlotte died in November 1843 aged 63, and was buried at the family church of St Mary, West Horsley 10. Being unable to write, James marked the death certificate with a cross to show that he was present at her death 11.
James and Jane’s last child, Elizabeth, was born in November 1844. The 1851 Census showed 41-year-old James and Jane, 38 and their six youngest children still in West Horsley 12. The two eldest boys James, 16, and 15-year-old William, like their father, were working as ‘agricultural labourers’. Their eldest daughter Ann, 19, was in the adjacent village of East Clandon, a house servant for a farmer and his family 13.
Two sons join the Life Guards
Ten years on, the 1861 Census showed James and Jane were now alone at Hill House, West Horsley, all their children having moved on 14.
Two of their sons, William and Richard, were troopers in the 1st Regiment of Life Guards based in London’s Hyde Park, one of the mounted regiments responsible for the protection of the Monarch, Queen Victoria 15, 16. A key asset required to be in the Life Guards was to be tall – both William and Richard were around 6 feet (1.83m), certainly well above the height of most men in the UK at that time.
James and Jane’s eldest son, James, unmarried, had moved back with his parents into Hill House by the time of the 1871 Census, when both the James were described as ‘farm labourers’ 17.
Illness strikes the family
The health of the family had seemingly been remarkably good up to this point. James and Jane had seen all their seven children reach adulthood during a time when more than 25 percent of children born in the UK did not reach the age of five 18.
However, the family’s good fortune would not last. James and Jane’s son William resigned from the Army in June 1875 after 22 years of service with the Life Guards. Although not mentioned on his exemplary Army record, he was suffering from phthisis, another name for tuberculosis. In October 1877, with his mother present he died in West Horsley from the disease aged 41 19.
A year later, Jane was struck down with cancer, passing away at home in March 1879 aged 66 20. The informant on the death certificate was not her husband James but her youngest daughter Elizabeth who had been working nearby as a housemaid, so she may well have been caring for her mother at the time 21. Whether James was there is not known, but two years later, he was an inmate of the Guildford Union Workhouse, noted as a widowed 71-year-old agricultural labourer 22.
James disappears from records
Strangely, no further trace has been found of James. There are no available records for admission or discharge from the Guildford Workhouse Union, but if he had remained there for the rest of his life, his death would have been registered and a death record found, so it seems likely that he left of his own accord. None of his immediate family were living in West Horsley in 1881, neither was James buried there.
Whatever happened to James may never be known, but he had certainly raised a family that he and his wife Jane would have been proud of.
March 2023, updated October 2025
Editor: Mike Brock
If you have any further information on James Woodhams, we’d love to hear from you and complete his story. Please contact us by email at spikelives@charlotteville.co.uk
Sources and References
Original Surrey parish and Guildford Union accounts are available at the Surrey History Centre, Woking. Digitised parish records were sourced through Ancestry.co.uk. A complete list of references may be found here James Woodhams references
Spike Lives is a Heritage project that chronicles the lives of inmates, staff and the Board of Guardians of the Guildford Union Workhouse at the time of the 1881 Census. The Spike Heritage Museum in Guildford offers guided tours which present a unique opportunity to discover what life was like in the Casual/Vagrant ward of a Workhouse. More information can be found here