 By 1816 she had started journeying through France.One of her brothers, Sir John Milley Doyle (1781–1856) was a commander of British and Portuguese forces in the Peninsular War and the War of the Two Brothers.Wheeler's husband died in 1820 and left her penniless, so she supplemented her income by translating into English the works of Charles Fourier and other French Owenite philosophers.