Like his elder brother Joshua, James stayed in the family home in Wolfe Street after his father Joshua’s death in 1823. He started off as a book keeper, the first rung on his way to becoming a merchant. In about 1827 James married his wife Elizabeth, almost certainly Elizabeth Gough (b 1805), younger sister of the tobacco merchant Gilbert Bankes Gough. James probably got married in the fashionable St Andrew’s in Renshaw Street where his father had been buried but the early marriage registers have not survived. James and Elizabeth had five children, all christened in St Andrew’s: John Bankes (b 1829), Elizabeth (b 1830), Richard (b 1832), Gilbert Gough (b 1834) and Alice (b 1836). The naming of the children is dominated by the Gough family – Gilbert and Elizabeth and their parents Richard Gough and Alice Bankes.
By 1827 James had progressed from book keeper to provision merchant with premises by the Salthouse Dock (primarily used for the corn and timber trades). He lived in Mill Street in a newly developed part of Toxteth Park adjacent to Liverpool. These were substantial three-storey terraced houses on an old road, a far cry from the dismal courts for which much of Toxteth became notorious. Then in 1839 James died aged 45. His wife Elizabeth seems to have died at about the same time.)
Life for the five orphaned children could have been harsh, as it gradually proved for the large family left behind by James’ younger brother John when he died in 1838. James’ children were lucky in having two comparatively affluent unmarried uncles to take them in, even if they were split between the two. Richard, Gilbert and Elizabeth went to live with the book seller Joshua Walmsley and their grandmother in Lord Street, where there was a family servant and scope for the boys to become apprenticed in the book selling trade. John Bankes and Alice went to live with the tobacco merchant Gilbert Gough, who also had a family servant. Gilbert and John went on to have illustrious careers; what befell Richard, Elizabeth and Alice is unknown.
Having been orphaned while still a young child, John Bankes was lucky to be placed with his uncle Gilbert Bankes Gough, the tobacco merchant. He had lost both parents and been separated from three of his siblings but his prospects in life were still good. By 1851 John had left his adopted home (in fact Gilbert got married that year and belatedly started his own family) and was lodging in Cornwallis Street, while working as a clerk in a ship broking office. As Liverpool’s maritime standing continued to burgeon, this was clearly a job with potential. In 1860, at the age of 30, John married Caroline Moody Eachus in her home town of Holywell in Flintshire and went to live with her in Sandown Terrace in Wavertree. Caroline had been born in 1836 but her mother died when she was an infant and she was brought up by her father’s second wife, her father also having died prematurely. Circumstances were not ideal but her stepmother Mary ran a business as a grocer and tallow chandler.
By the time of his marriage John had become a ship broker in his own right and could afford a family servant. He and Caroline had nine children: Mary Caroline (b 1861), Thomas James (b 1863), Edith Alice (b 1864), Eleanor Dixon (b 1867), Robert Ashley (b 1868), Gertrude Elizabeth (b 1871), John Bankes (b 1872), Martha Beatrice (b 1875) and Katherine Viola (b 1878). In 1871 the family was living on Thorn Hill in Wavertree with two nurses, a maid and a cook; in 1881 nearby in Victoria Park with a reduced complement now that most of the children had grown up of a cook, a waitress and a maid. In the 1880s John ceased being just a ship broker and set up his own shipping line, J B Walmsley & Co, with offices in Chapel Street. In 1882 he acquired Hartfield House in Calderstones Road, Allerton, a huge mansion apparently commanding a fine view over the River Mersey. John died in 1896 at the age of 67. His wife Caroline survived him and lived on for some years. The shipping line was run after his death by his eldest son (Thomas) James.
Like his older brother John Bankes, the young Gilbert Gough Walmsley was fortunate that after the death of his parents he could be taken in by an unmarried uncle, Joshua, of sufficient affluence to fund a family servant. After a few years living in Church Street, Gilbert moved with his new family to 50 Lord Street, where he continued living after Joshua’s death in 1861 until he belatedly got married in 1888. Starting as an apprentice book seller, he gradually picked up his uncle’s wide-ranging trade. By the time he took over the business, it had already expanded into publishing. He himself – with some modesty – usually referred to himself as a stationer but the G G Walmsley imprint was responsible for publishing a series of notable volumes. In his last years he took on as an assistant in his business a relation from his grandmother’s family, Robert Newton Bibby.
Gilbert married Mary Agnes Earnshaw in 1888. She was born in Colne, Lancashire, in 1851 to Joseph Earnshaw, an accountant who moved down to the Wirral, initially without his family, in about 1860 and died there in 1871. (At her marriage Mary described her father as a banker.) Gilbert and Mary lived in Hoylake on the Wirral coast in Belgrave House in the fashionable Meols Drive, along with several servants. They had one daughter, Elizabeth (b c1899). Gilbert died in 1904 at the age of 70.
> John Walmsley b 1796 (James' brother)
< Joshua Walmsley b1791 (James' brother)