William Wheeler Yelf - The Parliamentary Papers of a Convicted Defalcator

The fascinating story of William Wheeler Yelf - respected Methodist minister, owner of Yelf Brothers Printers, pillar of the community and, as it turns out, massive fraudster - has been covered over three postings earlier in this blog. However it was only when going through some Parliamentary papers that I came across the correspondence between the Trustees of the Isle of Wight Savings banks, the Commissioners of the National Debt and William Grey, an accountant who examined the books. Read in a chronological sequence they provide a fascinating look at the methods William Yelf used to defraud the bank over a 15 year period (no impetuous act on his part then!).

Any further commentary on my part would be wasted, so get yourself a nice cup of tea, a pencil and a calculator and settle down for some real-life detective work!

Frederick Yelf - Fishmonger

This rather interesting bill has been in my possession for a while now. As you can see Frederick Yelf was a Shanklin fishmonger and this fortnightly bill from 1931 (it looks as though he made a mistake before correcting it) includes such choice items as chicken, salmon, cod and herrings. I'm not sure, but I believe the stamps were a quick method of paying tax with the company stamp . The money went to the government and it was a lot easier and cheaper than collecting it.

It's a nice item and lucky to have survivied in such good condition.

New Zealand Yelf/Yealf

I know that every now and then the odd Yealf wanders by, attracted by the excitement and bright lights of the far more numerous Yelfs. The posting below from Wendy Griffin may be of especial interest to them as well as confirming (not that much was required) that the two names spring from the same well. The references to Martin and Damerham are interesting as these two villages in the New Forest seem to have been the home to the vast majority of Ye(a)lfs before they seemed to emigrate to the Isle of Wight. I am also pretty sure that Luke Ye(a)lf appears on the International Geneological Index (IGI) and I have an old (15 years ago?) photo of his grave stone with the note 'Gravestone of Luke Yelf, Damerham Church. Inscription unclear' - although it must be said that there were probably a couple of Luke Ye(a)lfs about at the time...

Anyway, this is what Wendy had to say

Hi Clive, I enjoy your blog about the Yelfs. My connection is way back when Anne Yelf married William Flemington 8 4 1769 at Martin in Wiltshire. She was born 26.12.1745 at Damerham the daughter of John Yealf and Mary Randal. John was the son of Luke Yealf and Mary Randal. I wonder if you know of this family? l have a bit on the Flemingtons who married into the King family in Bedhampton etc.
My family have been in N.Z since 1841 [mothers side] and 1863 dads side.
Keep up the good work, it brings 'family' closer especially when we live on the other side of the world. Cheers Wendy Giffin.

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MSN NZ Travel Find a way to cure that travel bug

Back again....

...and with a bit of a bump too!

As you might have realised I've been neglecting this site over the last few months, partly through a lack of Yelf items on ebay and partly through having my attention on other things. Not wishing everyone to think it was 'dormant' (it isn't dormant, just resting) I thought I might post up a scan of an invoice for fish sales by Frederick Yelf on the Isle of Wight just to keep things ticking over for a while. Well I'll put that one up a bit later because I was a bit startled by what I found when I had a look over the site.

When I was poking about in the back of the site (not a technical term but a fair description nonetheless) I was surprised to see a collection of Draft postings. Some of these were obviously spam - such as the hypnotherapy courses in Surrey over Christmas - but some were Yelf related.

Some time ago I had enabled a feature letting readers set up their own postings - you can see the address at the top. What I didn't realise was that I hadn't set up any way of notifying me that you'd done so and as I haven't been looking in the Draft postings section I was totally unaware that any postings had been made. Now I find half a dozen postings going back to last October. So many, many apologies to the following and I'll get onto these over the weekend and get the show back on the road.

Anje Yelf and Richard Yelf - Very sorry to hear the news. I'll be in touch shortly.

Winona Kent - I'd be happy to see what I can come up with but I couldn't see a reply email in your post though...

Paul Keatley - Many thanks for the picture and I'll try posting it up over the weekend

Apologies once again and now I'm off to tinker in the back of the site to make sure this doesn't happen again!