The Hollings Family
Page Two
Click on the pictures to enlarge them.
To the right of the page I have drawn up the relevant miniature family tree. In the case of a subject marrying more than once, only the marriage relevant to our family is shown.
Carsten Hollings - abt. 1765. Married various, see page one
George Thomas Hollings- Born 1805. Married Rachel Unknown
George James Hollings - Born 1826. Married Selina Popkins
George Carsten Hollings - Born 1858. Married Sarah Jemimah Inward
Sarah Ethel Hollings - Born 1889. Married John Arthur Gowing
In 1854 George
James Hollings married Selina Popkins at St Dunstan's Church Stepney. A
wonderful gothic Church steeped in history. Selina was the daughter of Thomas and Sarah
Popkins of
Pleasant Place, Bethnal Green. Thomas was a silk weaver, one of
hundreds in Spitalfields and Bethnal Green, a rapidly declining trade that had trapped many families
in long term poverty. Selina was the seventh of nine children and was a
laundress, many of her brothers and sisters were silk weavers like their
father. In 1851 Selina was living at No 1 Pleasant Place with her parents
but by 1854 and the time of her wedding, she was living at 19 Globe Road,
Stepney.
The following passage dates from January 1848. It is part of a Sanitary Inspection of
Bethnal Green by Hector Gavin.
"But PLEASANT-PLACE presents the ne plus ultra of street abomination. It is impossible to conceive how utterly filthy and abominable this street is; to be estimated it must be seen. The broken up road is filled in its hollows, and covered on its surface, so as to be nearly impassable (even this dry frosty day) with the putrescent muddy slime already referred to; and this is its state shortly after it has been cleansed, as it is absurdly termed, by the parish authorities. The street is nothing more or less than an elongated lake or canal; only, in place of water, we have a black, slimy, muddy compost of clay and putrescent animal and vegetable remains. Fever has visited this spot, and in one house has been very fatal.
PLEASANT-ROW and PLEASANT-PLACE, Pleasant-row forms the northern side; Pleasant-place the eastern and southern sides of a quadrangular space, opposite the Jews' burying-ground. In the centre of this space is a smaller square, leaving a narrow passage to the east side of the square, and a still narrower passage to the southern; it is continuous with the western boundary. This central square is made up of swine-pens and yards in which dung-heaps are piled; in it are the privies of the northern half of the row, forming the south of the square. Immediately facing Pleasant-row is a ditch, filled with slimy mud and putrefying filth, which extends for 100 feet. The space between Pleasant-row and the central square is, beyond description, filthy; dung-heaps and putrefying garbage, refuse, and manure, fill up the horrid place, which is covered with slimy foetid mud. The eastern end has likewise its horrid filthy foetid gutter reeking with pestilential effluvia; the southern alley is likewise abominably filthy: there, the same slime and mud overspreads the broken up, bouldered path; and there, the same most disgusting odours are given off, which are common to this area of putrescence. I do not think that in all my journeyings through the degraded haunts of wretched poverty in this poor parish I have found a scene so distressing. The houses in Pleasant-place are chiefly two- roomed, and let at 3s. 6d. a week, but some of the two-roomed and all the three- roomed houses let at 5s. a week. I entered one of these houses on the southern side, and found that every individual in a family of seven had been attacked with fever, and that a daughter, aged 22, who had been convalescent eight weeks, on her return from the country to her miserable home, died of a relapse in two days. The body was retained in the house, because no means could be found to raise the money necessary to bury it, and was then lying in its coffin. The privy of this house is close to it, and is full and overflowing, covering the yard with its putrescent filth; the stench was perfectly unendurable; the house itself was most shockingly dirty. 3s. a week were paid for this den of pestilence, while the husband and wife together, by working night and day, could only earn 15s. a week. To permit a continuance of the state of things I saw would be, as it were, voluntarily to tolerate the elimination of a fatal poison to be sucked in at every breath of the occupants, who, thus condemned to death, perish not by the momentary pangs of official strangulation, but by the more miserable death of loathsome typhus. How lost to all sense of charity and brotherly love, how forgetful of the value of human life, are those who apathetically survey such sad scenes of wretched misery."
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| Pleasant Place (marked in yellow) and East Street (marked in green) in 1848 | Pleasant Place and East Street in 1870 |
Curiously, George James Hollings was also living in Stepney, at Globe Road, No 16. It is said to have been a common practice for couples who were about be married to arrange to live at an address within the parish of the Church they were to marry in. This removes the problems of marrying someone outside of your own parish. In this case both George and Selina were living in parishes outside of St Dunstan. George's home address of 103 Green street was in the parish of St Simon Zelotes, whilst Selina's address of Pleasant place was in the parish of St James the Less. Both of these parishes come under St Mathew Bethnal Green but the marriage took place in St Dunstan's Church Stepney! Strictly speaking the marriage should have taken place in brides parish of St Simon.
St
Dunstan's Church, Stepney. circa 1805
Globe
Road Nos. 21-33. Curious flat roofed structures that look a little
more than the average "two up two down." Unmistakably
Globe Road again, the "even" side of the road and rather less
appealing. circa 1913.
One month after
the death of George's mother Rachel saw the birth of
Henry William Hollings a third child for George James and Selina. He was
Baptised at the Church of St Peter, Stepney, on the 13th April. The
following year Selina died in St. Bartholomew's hospital, London,
leaving George James with three children, all under nine years of
age.
From an
article written by John Hollingshead in 1861 Shoreditch,
Spitalfields and Bethnal Green was on the verge of economic collapse.
The area had become inundated with silk weavers. In 1824 there were 25,000
looms in and around Spitalfields, in 1831 there were between 14,000 to 17,000 working
looms, by 1861 that had dropped to only 8,000. At
the time Spitalfields had a population of about 100,000 persons,
half of which were entirely dependent on the weaving industry.
This district comprised parts of Mile End New Town and Bethnal Green
where many one-storied cottages were being erected for the weaving families who were employed as out-workers. In 1835 wages were lower by
thirty per cent, than in 1824, and they did not average more than eight
or nine shillings a week. Now (1861) they cannot be higher than seven
shillings, or seven shillings and sixpence a week, on an average.
The decline in the Silk
weaving industry in the area had started in the late 1700's when local
regulations meant the same job could be carried out elsewhere at a
significantly reduced cost. Materials that once would have originated
in Spitalfields were now available from Norwich, Paisley and Dublin. A
further blow came in the form of illegal imports from France. The
vast profits to be made meant that no form of policing could
prevent the flourishing cross channel trade. In 1826 the prohibition
was lifted and legitimized the trade. An 80% duty was imposed on
all silk imports. Perhaps the final double blows came with the advent
of steam power and the 1860 trade agreement with France. As a result
the market was flooded with fancy low priced fabrics from both here and
abroad which condemned the Spitalfields weavers to almost inescapable
poverty.
Not surprisingly George James married
again on November 1st 1863. His second wife was also the daughter of a silk
weaver. She was Elizabeth Coe daughter of Samuel Coe and Sarah Elizabeth
Huet of Bethnal Green.
At the beginning of this and every page I have stated "Only the marriage
relevant to our family will be shown". In the case of George James and
Elizabeth I have made an exception. Elizabeth's father Samuel Coe was born
in Kettering, Northamptonshire. Details of his family were passed on through
generations and have been sent to me by William Hollings, Elizabeth's grandson.
He has kindly allowed me to reproduce them here.
During 1851, Elizabeth was living at 26 East Street with her parents Samuel and
Sarah and her sisters Emma, Jane and Ellen. She was born in 1843 making her
17 years younger than her husband. The lease to 26 East Street at this time
was owned by George Thomas Hollings so the two families obviously new each
other. By the time George Carsten was born in 1859, the Coe family had
moved out and George, Selina, Rachel and the new baby George had moved in.
We do not know where the Coe family moved to but it could not have been
very far. As far as
the 1871 census is concerned, it is strangely quiet regarding the
whereabouts of the remaining family. The birth of Esther in 1869 shows
the family were living at 55, Globe road, Mile End and the
1871 directory for the area lists George Hollings, Stonemason living
at the same address but the census, taken on the 2nd April, records the house as being
unoccupied.
By
1881 George James and his second wife, Elizabeth, were living at 9, Candy
Street, Bow. By now the couple now had nine children of their own but still
living with his father was Henry William the son of Selina. The new
family were: George Henry born 1865, Christiana Elizabeth born 1866,
Frederick born 1868, Esther born 1869, William Thomas born 1871 (died
1881), Reuben born 1874, Ernest born 1877, Grace born 1879 and Arthur
born 1880.
The two elder children from the
first marriage were now living away. In 1878 the eldest child Rachel had
married Walter Thomas Phillips at St Thomas' Church, Bethnal Green. The marriage
certificate has the same address for both Rachel and Walter of 4, Hassard
Street, off Hackney road and close to Columbia Market. The occupation of
Rachel's father was now Builder rather than Stonemason. The family left Candy
Street and moved to Walthamstow some time around 1890. By this time there
were two more children in the family, Benjamin David was born in 1883 and John
James in 1885. George James Hollings died on 13th
March 1893 in the Tottenham Training Hospital. The death certificate gives the cause of death
as "Sarcoma of thigh, 12 months [tumuor] on brain, coma". The writing is a little difficult to read but
it suggests he may have been in a coma for 12 months before he finally died. George's
eldest daughter, Christiana Elizabeth,
married Arthur Bishop in September 1895 at the Church of St Michael and All
Angels, Palmerston road, Walthamstow. At the time the family were living at 26, Ritchings Avenue, a turning
off Forest Road next to Hervey Park Road. It was in Hervey Park Road Sarah Ethel
Hollings (George James Granddaughter from his first marriage) had been born
seven years earlier. It is inconceivable that the two families did know of each
other but I wonder how much contact there was between the two families and how
much support the newly widowed Elizabeth received from her stepson. Arthur
Bishop was the son of Joseph Bishop, builder. He was born in Notting Hill and the couple appear on the 1901 census as
the owners of a grocers shop at 220 Uxbridge Road Shepherd's Bush. There
were no children. Three years later Reuben married Ada Fordham at St Mary's
Church Walthamstow. Ada was the daughter of James Fordham a labourer and /
or gardener possibly born in
Cambridgeshire. Her address on the marriage certificate was 3, Northcote
Road Walthamstow. At the age of twenty four Reuben was a plasterer living at
46, Selborne Road, Walthamstow. The 1901
census shows him to be self employed and living at 51, Eden Road,
Walthamstow. Again there were no children. Next to marry was Grace Clara who
married Charles Noe in 1900. Charles was the son of Abraham Noe a house
painter by profession, Charles was a plasterer's labourer. In 1901 Charles
and Grace were living with Henry Noe, Charles' brother and his wife Florence
and their one year old son George at 40, Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow. Henry
was a joiner and carpenter as were Charles' younger brothers George and
William. By the end of 1906 Benjamin David had married Edith Beard and in
1907 the youngest child John James married Miriam Richardson. I
have learned from living descendants of John James Hollings that the sons of
George James worked closely together even to the point of forming their own
building company. I assume this would naturally have included the extended
family of the daughters husbands as their professions suggest. George James Hollings death
certificate describes him as a "House painter of Walthamstow".
Eight years later his first born son appears in the 1901 census as a
"Master Builder". It would appear that between the first and
second of George James Hollings families, there was someone able to
turn their hand to many of the trades required in the construction of houses
and history shows them to be in the right area as Walthamstow at this time
was expanding rapidly. (Click
here for more information about
Walthamstow)
A turning off
Green Street was Smart Street, still in existence today but bearing no resemblance
to the Smart Street of 1855. One of the roads leading from Smart Street
was
East Street. This plan (from
the Hollings page one) shows East Street in relation to Green
Street where George grew up. It was here in 1856, at number 26, that George
James and Selina's first child Rachel was born and
three years later George
Carsten Hollings was born. The house forms part of a lease containing eight
properties purchased by his father in 1850. On the plan there is no
division between 103/198 Green Street and one of the houses in East
Street. It would be easy to assume this was number 26 East Street but
of that I cannot be sure. The family were still at
this address at the time of the 1861 census..
East Street and Smart Street were among the poorer areas of Bethnal
Green, terraced houses akin to the pictures above would have been the
order of the day. Being a Stonemason, George would have been able to
make a good living had the work been available.
Walter
was the son of Thomas William Phillips whose occupation was given as a
manager, Walter himself was a gunsmith and unusually for the time he could
not sign his own name. In 1881 the family were living at 52 Old Ford
Road, Hackney, they had two children, Arthur born 1879 and Clara born 1880.
Walter's occupation had changed from gunsmith to labourer. We have not paid too much
attention to the Phillips family but it appears that Walter had two
sisters, Jesse Eliza and Emily Jane and a younger brother Adolphus
Frederick. Walter Thomas Phillips died in 1893 the same year as his father in law,
at the age of 36. The children Clara and Arthur were thirteen and fourteen
years of age respectively, Rachel was 37. It is not clear yet whether she
married again. Rachel's brother George Carsten was living in Bentham Road, South
Hackney. It would be from there he would marry in 1882. Henry William married in
Poplar in 1886. His wife was Agnes Amos was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in
1865, the daughter of George Amos a saw maker/sharpener.
View the Hollings Family Tree
Hollings Pages 1,
3, 4.
Hollings
Timeline
Coe
Family page
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