The story of the Wheeler family and their brewery trade in High Wycombe, from Robert Wheeler’s arrival in town in 1808 through to the closure of the brewery on Easton Street in 1931, was the subject of a talk by High Wycombe Society Trustee, Jackie Kay, in October at the Buckinghamshire Local History Network (BLHN) annual conference hosted by the Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society (BAS). The half-day conference featured “Wheelers, Wethereds and Wellers” among other Buckinghamshire brewers over the past three centuries, and was held via Zoom. (This replaced the previously advertised full-day conference which could not go ahead due to Covid-19 restrictions)
Robert Wheeler was one of the local “Pioneers of Progress” honoured in 1911 in the stained glass window in the Oak Room at the Town Hall in High Wycombe, and, as such, he features in the High Wycombe Society’s 2011 publication “Wycombe Pioneers of Progress – a celebration”. In her talk, Jackie drew on that material as a starting point, but went on to look at the contributions of four generations of the Wheeler family and their changing fortunes through the nineteenth century and beyond.
BLHN is an annual event which usually includes a day’s programme of talks complemented by an exhibition area with “stalls” set up by local societies. The High Wycombe Society has regularly contributed exhibition stands based on the theme of the year. Moving the conference online in 2020 presented both challenges and opportunities for the organisers. One of the challenges taken on by BAS Chairman Peter Marsden was to compile material supplied by local societies to form a Virtual Local History Fair; one of the opportunities is that this can still be accessed several weeks after the day of the conference.
