James Henry Wheeler was born in Wooburn, Buckinghamshire in October, 1890 and was the fifth of eight children to James Henry Wheeler and Alice Eliza (Davis).
James Henry Sr was born in Landford, Oxfordshire and Alice Eliza in Abbingdon, Oxfordshire and were married in 1881 at Malling, Rochester, Kent.
Like his father James Henry Jr was a papermaker and sometime after the 1911 census he came to live at 4, Diamond Terrace, Oakenholt to work at the North Wales Paper Company, Ltd. He had been working there for 18 months when he enlisted in the Army at Flint in November, 1914. His battalion landed in France on the 2nd December, 1915 where he remained until he was killed by a shell on the 17th June, 1917.
He was buried in Bard Cottage Cemetery, Ieper, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium (Plot II, Row F, Grave 16).
He was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal and is remembered on three war memorials – St David’s Parish Church, Oakenholt (now in St Mary’s Parish Church, Flint); North Wales Paper Company, Ltd, Oakenholt and the Royal British Legion Club, Flint.
In July, 1920 a memorial tablet, erected by the directors of the North Wales Paper Company, Ltd, to the memory of William Hughes and James Wheeler, who fell in the Great War, was unveiled. The Rector (Rev Canon Nicholas, M.A.) journeyed specially from Flint, with the Rev David James, M.A., and others present were Mr and Mrs Norman McCorquodale and Mr J R Alexander. Lance Corporal Wheeler’s parents were present, having journeyed from Halifax, and brothers and a sister of William Hughes, Flint, were also present.
James Henry Sr was born in 1859 but it is not known when he died. Alice Eliza died in 1941 at Wycombe, Buckinghamshire aged 83.