The Wilkinson family originated in Rotherham, and all the twelve children in the family were born there. William Wilkinson was from Kimberworth, and spent his working life working as an inspector of the Permanent Way for various railway companies. Ann Wilkinson, née Badger came from Brinsworth. Of the twelve children born to the marriage, six died in infancy or childhood.

The family moved to Holbeck from Kimberworth in the 1890s, taking up residence in Holbeck Lodge, off Water Lane. Although the building is long since demolished, it was an important building in the industrial heritage of Leeds, being built for the engineer Matthew Murray, the first engineer to make practical use of steam power in locomotive engines. During the time the Wilkinson family was resident in the building, it was shared with another family.

Soon after the Great War began, the production of printed electoral rolls was suspended until the middle of 1918, so between 1915 to the summer of 1918, no registers of electors were printed, but it is during this hiatus that William and Ann Wilkinson moved to Badger Terrace, on Main Street in Scholes. William was still working on the Permanent Way, and it is likely that he had some responsibility for overseeing the teams that worked on the line that passed through Scholes.

At this point, neither of their sons whose names appear of the Scholes Roll of Service lived in Scholes, and their names appear, it seems, at the request of their parents.

During the first two years of his service, Edgar Wilkinson lived aboard the hulk training ship HMS Tenedos. Naval tradition dictated that while afloat, boys under training went barefoot. On passing from Boy Service to Man Service, he was transferred to HMS Indus, the Artificer Training Vessel, also at Chatham. While serving on HMS Tenedos, Edgar Wilkinson’s training would concentrate on basic seamanship before moving on to raising the educational standards of the boys to a level whereby they would be able to tackle the technical training for the trade they would follow later, and this would include mathematics to a high standard to enable the boys to use the technical measuring instruments they would use in their working life looking after the engines on ships. They would also follow a programme of learning the skills they would need to inspect and repair the wide variety of machinery that they would have responsibility for at sea. As fitters and engineers on warships across the world, their captains would depend on them to be able to repair every mechanical problem they faced. After moving to HMS Indus, all the skills that the trainees had learnt would be put into practice and applied to the more realistic scenarios that could be created in the engine rooms of Indus. On the completion of his training, Edgar Wilkinson qualified as an Engine Room Artificer, 5^th Class (ERA5), and was transferred to HMS Vivid, the Royal Naval Barracks at Devonport in July 1912 to await a posting to working ship of the line.

With repairs complete, HMS Chatham resumed the hunt for SMS Königsburg, and on 19^th October, a tender ship of the Königsburg, SMS Präsident was sighted upriver from the coastal town of Lindi, in German East Africa (now Tanzania). The Germans claimed that SMS Präsident was a hospital ship, but the ship was neither ‘dressed’ in the livery of a hospital ship, nor was it fitted out as one. Further, there had been no previous notification that the ship was operating as a hospital ship. The Royal Navy captured the ship and claimed prize rewards on it. Documents captured aboard the ship showed that it had been used as a supply ship for SMS Königsburg. When the ship was inspected, the engines were found to be broken down, and in an operation that would be highly likely to have personally involved the recently promoted ERA4 Edgar Wilkinson, the engines were permanently disabled. Following the capture of SMS Präsident, HMS Chatham was ordered to rejoin the hunt for SMS Königsburg.

HMS Chatham was successful in locating Königsburg, and a supply ship named Somali on the Rufiji River on 30^th October, but owing to shallow water in the river delta, HMS Chatham was unable to close in on them. HMS Chatham opened fire on the Somali on 7^th November, scoring a hit with a single shell which started a fire that would spread and destroy the ship. A few days later, with the Königsburg staying in the relatively safe shallow waters of the river, the British scuttled an old collier, the Newbridge, in the main channel of the river delta to prevent the German ships escaping to the open sea. HMS Chatham resumed patrols along the East African Coast but was ordered back to the Mediterranean in early January 1915.

On 6^th May 1917, Edgar Wilkinson left HMS Actaeon when he was commissioned as an Acting Mate (Engineering), Mate being a rank equivalent to that of a Sub-Lieutenant, but peculiar to craft trades of the Royal Navy at the time. Before he up a commission it was noted that was qualified to take charge of the engines on a small ship and was recommended for advancement to Chief ERA after his posting to HMS Actaeon.

His name was published in the Navy List shortly after his commission but does not appear again on the active list of serving officers. Almost exactly a year after Edgar Wilkinson commissioned, an entry on his service records describes how he was transferred from the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar to Royal Naval Hospital Great Yarmouth ‘as a dangerous lunatic’. The absence of his name in the Navy List in subsequent volumes to that in which he did appear suggest that he had been removed from the Active list of officers soon after he was commissioned, and this, in turn, suggests that he had become mentally ill quite soon after he commissioned as an officer.

Royal Naval Hospital Haslar was in Portsmouth and served as a general hospital. As such, it would have had only limited facilities for the treatment and accommodation of those who were suffering from metal illnesses. Royal Naval Hospital Great Yarmouth had served as a ‘lunatic asylum’ continually since the middle of the 19^th century and was much better equipped and staffed as a specialist facility than Haslar was.

It isn’t known how long Edgar Wilkinson spent in the hospital at Great Yarmouth, but he appears for the first time on the electoral roll for Scholes in the spring of 1920, as a resident, and presumably, discharged from the Royal Navy. Prior to this, he was neither listed as resident or as an absentee voter. He also appeared, for the first time, on the list of pensioned officers.

Wilfred Wilkinson died in Mountfields Nursing Home at 77 Clarendon Road on 16^th April 1932 at the age of 47 years. He is buried in Beeston Cemetery. Eva Wilkinson Died in Nottingham in January 1969, but was buried in Beeston Cemetery, although in a separate grave.

Following Edgar Wilkinson’s recovery and release from the Royal Navy, he moved into Badger Terrace with his parents. He was able to continue as an engineer, and in 1924, he moved away from Scholes to become an engineering company director in London. Returning in 1929, he married Jane Eyre Smith in Sandal Magna. Despite the wedding taking place in Wakefield, Jane Smith was originally from Laverack Cottages on Long Lane between Barwick and Garforth. In London, the couple lived at 45 Abbey Road, Enfield.

In February 1933, Edgar Wilkinson was in Barwick, visiting his brother in law, Leighton Smith and his family. Due to catch the train to Leeds at Scholes Station, he arrived at the station to see a train at the platform. Mistaking that train for the one he was due to catch, he ran to board the train, and succeeded in getting into a compartment just as the train began to move off. When the train terminated at Marsh Lane Station, a railway employee who was checking the train found Edgar Wilkinson dead in his compartment. At an inquest the following day, after taking medical evidence, which stated Edgar Wilkinson had died from heart failure, and hearing from witnesses, a verdict of ‘Death from Natural Causes’ was returned. He was 40 years old. He was buried in Barwick on 3^rd March 1933.

Following the death of her husband, Jane Wilkinson decided to move back home with her family, and lived with her father at ‘Sandal’, 12 Leeds Road in Barwick. Jane Wilkinson lived on Leeds Road for the rest of her life, until she died on 4^th February 1980.