Wells was born on 16 August 1842, the second son of George Wells, a cabinetmaker.[1][2][5] He left Bedford Modern School at the age of fourteen and went to sea, ‘signing up with the shipping company Wigrams as a midshipman on the frigate Devonshire’.[1][2] Wells was made a captain on 16 December 1868[6] and offered command of Wigrams's first steamship.[1][2][7]
While on leave in the early 1870s, Wells became engaged to Josephine Grimbly of Banbury, Oxfordshire.[1][2] Josephine's father, although in favour of the match, said that ‘Charles Wells must leave the sea and find a new and less dangerous career’.[1][2] In 1872 Charles and Josephine married; they had five sons (one of whom, Richard Wells, was created a baronet) and three daughters.[1][2]
The grave of Charles Wells, at Foster Hill Cemetery, Bedford.
In 1876, Wells became a brewer when he took over a coal wharf, a malt house and brewery in Horne Lane, Bedford, and thirty five public houses, sold to him at public auction in December 1875.[1][2][8] He subsequently sold off the coal business.[1][2]
In 1903, Wells became a member of Bedford Borough Council, which he served until 1909.[2] Four of Charles's sons became partners in the brewery on condition that they live in Wells's native town of Bedford.[1] In 1910, the business was registered as a private limited company, valued at £150,000 and owning 140 pubs.[1]
Charles Wells died in Bedford on 1 April 1914.[1] He is buried at the Foster Hill Cemetery, a few metres east of the chapel.
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