CAPTAIN BALDWIN A. WAKE& family of Valdez Island

         Wake Family Life in Esquimalt


 

 

 

 

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TheWake Family
lived in Esquimalt following the retirement of Captain Wake from the Royal Navy, in 1866. The census records of that time from Esquimalt and area do not include the Wake family. Perhaps they spent extended periods of time with family in England, also maintaining a home in Esquimalt..

It is not known how much time Adelaide Wake and the children spent on Valdez Island after the pre-emptions of 1876. According to James K.Nesbitt, contributing writer for the Daily Colonist, after the disappearance of her husband, Mrs. Wake lived in Esquimalt. He also reported that Mrs.Crease, of Pendrelew, wife of Justice Henry Crease, and Mrs. Pooley, of Fernhill, were ladies whom Mrs. Wake spent happy times with. Mrs. Wake lived in Esquimalt until her death in 1894, as reported by the The Daily British Colonist

In June 1881, the older daughter of Captain and Mrs. Wake, Amy Rosamond, married her first cousin, Gervais Wake, at St. Paul's Church, Esquimalt. The Daily British Colonist of June 10,1881 carried an account of the wedding. Thirty-three years later, in 1914, Rosamond and Gervais, and their daughter, Gladys Maude, left Esquimalt to live at Crompton Hill, Herefordshire, England.
In the Colonist of January 5, 1939, an obituary notice, written by Miss F.R. Crease, of Victoria, writes that Amy Rosamond died suddenly at Malvern, England, on December 29, 1938.  She was survived by her husband, Gervais, and one daughter, Rosamond Adelaide Alice Norbury, of England. The article continues to say that Rosamond lived in Esquimalt for only several years prior to the Great War, and her return to England. Her father, Captain Wake, had lived in Esquimalt for many years.

In June 1886, the younger daughter of Captain and Mrs. Wake, Florence Myrna, married Henry Cobourne Maunoir Ridley, at St, Paul's Church, as recorded in The Daily British Colonist, June 1, 1886. The couple moved to Mr. Ridley's home at Kamloops, BC, where they had two children.. 

George Wake, of Esquimalt, son of Captain Wake, wrote an interesting poem about the malamute dog, and this found its way into the BCARS.

Hereward Eyre Wake, grandson of Captain Wake, and son of Rosamond and Gervais, was a long time Esquimalt resident.  He, died in a tragic train accident, near Nanaimo, in
1913.

Gladys Maude, daughter of Rosamond and Gervais, graduated from the Royal Jubilee Hospital, in Victoria, in 1912.  When her parents moved to England, in 1914, Gladys joined them.  When the Great War began, she volunteered to nurse abroad.  While working in a hospital, in France, in 1914, she died from wounds suffered during an enemy attack.

At the old world St. Paul's Anglican Church in Esquimalt, at the historic naval base, mural tablets remain to the memory of Captain Wake; his wife Adelaide; their granddaughter, Gladys Maude, and their grandson, Hereward Eyre.