Biography of William Porter

Born in Reedham in 1838 & baptised on 23 December 1838. In the 1841 census William (2) is living with his parents James (30) & Mary (30), brothers James (14) & John (6), & sister Elizabeth (8).

William's mother died in November 1841 & his father remarried a couple of years later; by 1851 William was living in Reedham with his sister Mary (29) & her husband Thomas Chipperfield (44, a rat-catcher), and their children Mary (7), Charlotte (7), & newborn Thomas (2 months).

On 1 January 1861 William, now a waterman/wherryman (like his father), married Emily Sarah Chester; in the 1861 census William's still in Reedham, living with his wife's parents (Robert, 62 & Mary, 60) & their grand-children Ellenor Mitchel (12) & Robert Ellingham (2). By 1871 William & Emily have moved to Rockland St Mary and are living with their children William (9), James (8), Charlotte (2) & newborn Robert (2 months).

William's wife Emily died in February 1872; a year later, on 6 March 1873, William married Maria Mollett.

William took over as Innkeeper of The Star public house from his father James in 1877. In the 1881 census William & Maria are living at the Star Inn with William's children Charlotte (12) & Robert (10), his father James (78), and a lodger (Elizabeth Jordan, 60, a widow). By 1891 William (54, publican & market gardener) & Maria (65) are still at the Star Inn, William's father died in 1886, their son Robert (20) is a jobbing labourer, their grandson Frederick William Porter is 7 years old, and Elizabeth Jordan (71) is still their lodger.

William's second wife Maria died 27 May 1896; a couple of years later William married his third wife, a widow, Emma Lake (nee Ringer) on 24 December 1898 in the Norwich Register Office. The 1901 census shows William (60, innkeeper) with his wife Emma (60) and grandson Frederick (18, market gardener labourer). William was innkeeper at the Star Inn until 1903. In the 1911 census William (74) is a farm labourer, living with his third wife Emma (68) in Rockland St Mary.

William died in 1923 age 85.