William Bullivant Woodhouse

William Bullivant Woodhouse was born on the 12th December 1847 in Shenstone, Staffordshire, England. He was the son of James Bullivant Woodhouse (1821-?) and Ann Woodhouse (1824-1869).

As a young man, William was quite the adventurer and left his native England to explore the interior of the United States, travelling across the Praries in a covered wagon.

He returned to Staffordshire and married a local girl, Betsy Bradley (1853-1935) in Ogley Hay on the 25th December 1873.

Shortly afterwards, William and his pregnant wife Betsy decided to try their luck on the goldfields of New Zealand. They left Plymouth on the 30th June 1847 bound for Wellington. They arrived in New Zealand two days after the birth of their son William Douglas (1874-1958) who had been born at sea off the coast of New Zealand. His middle name was taken from the ship they had been sailing upon, The Douglas.

In 1876, having had little luck in New Zealand, they left for Australia where they settled in Wallsend near Newcastle. They bought a large parcel of land that is now bordered by Robert and Low Streets and they built a house for themselves, with Betsy assisting with splitting and sawing the timber slabs.

William and Betsy went on to have eight more children - Clara (1878-1949), Susannah (1879-1952), Thomas William (1881-1954), Francis Edward (1884-1964), Florence Ann (1886-1913), Evelyn Pearl (1890-1949), Emily Betsy (1893-1963) and George Holland (1894-1919).

William's first job was navvying on the Newcastle Wallsend Coal Company's line and afterwards he worked for many years at the Wallsend Colliery.

At one time he was a keen member of the Wallsend branch of the Labor Movement and was a member of the committee that was responsible for establishing a second medical practice in Wallsend.

William died just eight months after his wife Betsy, on the 10th June 1936. They are both buried in the Methodist Section of Wallsend Cemetery.