Eli Wheaton was born in 1869. Eli was a carpenter and obtained the piece of land (which at one time was a daffodil field - possibly of the king Alfred variety) in Newton Poppleford which is now Woodley’s Joinery.
He was also the village undertaker, as was traditional with small building/joinery company’s employing enough local labour to enable coffin making, transportation, bearing, grave digging & other funeral necessities to be carried out on an as and when required basis – all then returning back to their everyday trade duties within the company.
