Caseley, Tubal (1843-1911)
Tubal Caseley was born, as Tubal Casely, in Wanstead, Essex on 15th November 1843. His mother – Maria Casely, (1819-1879)- was a dressmaker from Ide in Devon, and hia father was unknown . Tubal spent his childhood in Ide, then the family moved to Bristol in the late 1850’s. He was an apprentice bootmaker and was converted to the Free Methodist cause in 1861. He soon became a local preacher in the Bristol Circuit, before entering the travelling ministry in 1866. He was received into full connexion (ordained) in 1876.
He was an accomplished orator and well regarded according to the newspaper reports that I have seen.
Tubal died 7 August 1911 at Ellesmere, Cheshire.
Family
Tubal was born out of wedlock in Wanstead at Maria’s older sister’s home -Elizabeth Smith (Nee Casely) This would have been to avoid the stigma of being an unmarried mother. Maria married John Horatio Steel, bootmaker, in 1856 in Exeter. They moved to Bristol. My theory is that John is possibly Tubal’s father. We are unsure of the reasons for Tubal changing the spelling of his surname from Casely to Caseley – perhaps to symbolise a fresh start.
He married Mary Burroughs (1842-1927) on 12th March 1865 at Holy Trinity and St. Philip church in Bristol. They had ten children.
- Selina Gertrude (1866-1929)
- Alice Maud Mary (1867-1950)
- Clara Amelia (1869-1954)
- Rosa Rebecca (1871-1871)
- Louis Tubal Oratio (1873-1926)
- Armond Harry (1873-1937)
- Bertie Wilberforce (1875-1962)
- Kate Rosa (1877-1878)
- Jesse George (1879-1920 )
- Samuel Charles Wesley (1883-1962)
All of his sons had successful careers in the civil service and military. My great grandfather Samuel was a prison nurse who worked at hospitals in London, at HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight and HMP Dartmoor. Louis was a piano teacher. I met his son Ernest with my father in Shropshire in the 1990s. Lovely man.
He had a tricycle which he rode to various churches in Shropshire , and he had a seat made on his tricycle that his wife Mary could travel on.
All of his children played musical instruments. I have found newspaper reports of cake and tea made by his wife Mary and music played by his children in the village hall after Tubal’s sermons.
Circuits
- 1866 Bristol North
- 1868 Swaffham
- 1870 Walsall
- 1872 Grantham
- 1874 Loughborough
- 1878 Nantwich
- 1881 Bridgewater
- 1885 St. George’s, Wellington
- 1887 Overton
- 1891 Rotherham
- 1893 Runcorn
- 1894 Framlingham
- 1897 Callington
- 1901 St. Austell
- 1904 Tavistock
- 1906 Overton (Supernumerary)
- 1909 Chirk (Supernumerary)
References
Oliver A Beckerlegge, United Methodist ministers and their circuits: Being an arrangement in alphabetical order of the stations of ministers of the Methodist New … and the United Methodist Church, 1797-1932
Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers
Minutes of the United Methodist Church 1912 [Obituary] p 52
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