Emily Jane Rabey Holloway: April 4, 1857 – January 31,1937. Part 1: My Cornish great- grandmother.

Emily (Emilie) Jane Rabey was born in 1857, daughter to Emily Bawden and John Rabey, in Redruth, Cornwall, England. Her father was a copper and tin mining agent, who passed away during her childhood. It seems he had a grandmother with a Spanish name, Eleanor Manuel, which may account for her dark eyes and hair. The Cornish Celts are also connected to the French Celts from Bretagne (Brittany). Her family can be traced back to Cornwall for 300 years!

Emily Jane became a silk milliner (hat maker) and lived together with her siblings, her mother and her maternal grandmother, Paternal Bawden, in Redruth.
At age twenty-four, Emilie married William Holloway,, a 22 year old chemist in Redruth; he was originally from Wiltshire. His father, Richard Holloway, was an attorney who had moved to Redruth, Cornwall with his wife and children and set up his law practice. A cousin of mine sent me an interesting article written about him.

( You can find the link to this article in the comments following this blog post. )

The young married couple, William and Emilie, moved to Porthleven, a small fishing village on the coast, where William set up the first chemist’s shop in the town.

Below is a photo of William Holloway; I’m thinking Emilie, the silk milliner, must have made his smart bowler hat!

After six years running the chemist’s shop, William became the proprieter of the Commercial Hotel in 1889, a hotel right in the little harbour of Porthleven. He held the lease for the Commercial Hotel for ten years.

William and Emilie had seven children.

One twin ( Henry, brother to William Frank), had died at birth, and little Thomas, their sixth child, had died age two, in 1892, leaving two sons Frank and Claude, and three daughters, Peternal (my grandmother: the tear in the photo runs through her face), Lottie and Elsie. ( the tall girl in the apron is a househelper.)

Sadly, Emilie’s husband William died suddenly, at age 39, of a heart attack, and she was left widowed at the age of forty- two with five children.

Emilie Jane Holloway and their five children: Claude, Peternal, Lottie, William, with youngest, Elsie sitting in front.

Little Thomas Holloway’s gravestone, Porthleven St. Bartholomew’s church graveyard.

My great grandmother Mrs. Emily Holloway, continued on the lease of the hotel and became the Proprietress, from 1899 until 1913, when she retired. Check out the rates! She apparently was a no- nonsense woman; she had to be rather tough to deal with the pub customers, who were both local folk as well as visiting merchant seafarers. She was a member of the Conservative Party politically and followed the political news.

Emily Jane “Granny” Holloway with her three daughters, Lottie, Peternal and Elsie, and Peternal’s three children, Claude ( my father), and his younger sisters Mary and Betty.; ca 1914.

My Great Granny Holloway lived with her daughter Lottie on Belvedere Terrace during her later years. She died in 1937 and was laid to rest beside her husband William, and near her son Tommy, in the graveyard of St. Bartholomew’s.

Emilie Jane Rabey ( Great Granny Holloway) in her later years. She lived into her 80th year!

My late cousin Alan Ziemann and my elderly cousin Pete (still living today, age 97), both children of my Great Aunt Elsie, showed me around the church and graveyard in 2013. Alan also gave me much of the family history i have recorded in this blogpost, when we visited in 2022. At that visit, we had a supper out at the Harbour Inn ( formerly the Commercial Hotel). I told the young bartender that my great- Gran had been the Proprietess about 100 years ago! See below.

More stories of my Cornish Celtic family to come!

And to close, as I spent this afternoon playing violin ( which was passed down to me at age 11 by my Cornish father, and which I played in school and youth orchestras and chamber groups from age 11-18 ), and only in 2020, after a 44 year gap, picked it up again🎶🎻

I’ve found the link to some Cornish Celtic traditional music, including fiddles, banjo, guitar and wind instruments. Perhaps this type of entertainment graced the Commercial Hotel in Porthleven during my great grandmother’s day….it turns out this pub, the Barley Sheaf, is in Liskeard, where my cousin Rachel, my Aunt Mary’s granddaughter, lives presently!

And below, some more Cornish music with lovely photos of typical Cornwall scenery. Enjoy!