Charles Allen Du Val

James Francis Wilkinson

James Francis Wilkinson was born in 1842 in Stockport in Cheshire, the son of George Wilkinson, a cotton manufacturer, and his wife Elizabeth Lawton.

He was a cotton broker, and brother of Frederick Wilkinson 1840-1899 who married Frances Du Val on 9 February 1865.

On 1 July 1868 he married Catherine Sarah Du Val in Manchester Cathedral. She was born on 13 August 1849, and was the sister of Frances Du Val. They were daughters of Charles Allen Du Val and his wife formerly Elizabeth Renney.

James Francis Wilkinson and his wife had one child, Beatrice Wilkinson, born in 1870 at Liverpool.

In 1871 the family were living at 4 Alma Road, Garston in Liverpool.

Catherine Sarah Wilkinson died in Liverpool in 1873 aged only 25.

By 1881 the widowed James Francis Wilkinson and his daughter Beatrice were living with his brother Frederick Wilkinson and his family at Oak Bank House in Bollington near Macclesfield in Cheshire. In 1891 he and Beatrice were living at Overton House, Montpelier Crescent, Liscard in Cheshire. By 1901 his daughter had been married and James Wilkinson, aged 59, was a boarder in Liverpool.

Beatrice Wilkinson was married in 1895 to Robert Stewart Davidson at Dudley in Staffordshire. He was the son of a Somerset rector. They spent some time in the United States of America, where their sons Donald and Robert were born. Donald Davidson was born in 1897 and Robert Davidson in 1903. She left her husband while in America. In 1911 she described herself as a cookery instructress working for Nottinghamshire Education Committee, and was living in Sutton-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire with her two sons. She had three children altogether, one of whom had died by 1911. She died in 1954 in Nottingham aged 84 years.