Emily Jane Rabey Holloway: Part 3: Peternal and John’s family and work life in Brightwell and Wallingford, Oxfordshire-Berkshire, 1910-1922.

John (Jack) was welcomed as the new head of the Brightwell Church of England School in April 1910, by the outgoing head teacher ( and former colleague), in his departing speech, noted in the local newspaper.

Teacher’s salaries were not high. As the head teacher, Jack and Pet and their children would have lived in quarters supplied by the school, the School House. As well as administration and teaching duties, Jack was also involved in the sports department. He was a keen footballer and had been a founding member of Porthleven’s football club. And he seems to have continued involvement in football (soccer) in Brightwell. There was also cricket and community and church activities and a busy family. Life in Brightwell for Jack and Pet and children was full!
https://www.oxfordshirehistory.org.uk/public/school/archives/teaching/s216_1_pl1_1scale.jpg

Young Claude and his sisters did their early years of education at Wallingford Grammar school. Claude, my father, at age ten, in 1916, wrote a couple of exams and was awarded both a scholarship to continue at Wallingford Grammar School and a “place” at Christ’s Hospital boarding school for boys. The latter was chosen for his further schooling. Christ’s Hospital is a boarding school for boys ( and girls) founded in 1552 by young King Edward VI to care for poor children in London.(Edward VI, son of King Henry VIII, began his reign at age nine in 1547, and he only lived to age 16, but made significant contributions during his reign). The facility became a school for boys and girls for several centuries in London. It moved to spacious new grounds in Horsham, Sussex in 1912, for boys and for girls in Hertford. At age 10, young Claude left his parents and his two younger sisters, Mary (8) and Betty (5) and became a boarding student. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ’s_Hospital

I know my father had good memories of “ Housey” as it was called affectionately, but I’m certain it was also not an easy experience. Typically in British boarding schools of those days, the new boys were “initiated” by the older boys with various brutal traditions ( the same ones the older boys had suffered themselves a few years previously).

On a personal note, when my husband and I and our two elder sons (ages 1 and 3), headed off to SE Asia for work with an NGO, there was the possibility of our sons having to go to boarding school. When i told my Dad about that they may need to go at age eight, he said he went at ten years of age , and that was too young! So, that was telling.

However, in the midst of the challenges, he excelled academically and was awarded the honoured title of Senior Grecian in his graduating class; he was also involved in music ( I play his violin!) and sports – we have photos….curled up scrolls which are very wide black and white photos of the whole school (600+ students), and we used to be able to find him! Below, modern day students at Christ’s Hospital; they still wear the unmistakeable uniform of navy tunics over navy knickers or skirts and bright yellow knee socks! Boy king, Edward Vi, age thirteen. And my father, age 16 or 17 when he was Senior Grecian.

Every couple of summers while growing up, my parents would host the “Old Blues” alumni gatherings for those who lived in Vancouver and surrounding areas. I recall one old gentleman, Captain Gregory, who had been single all his life, a sea captain, and then married at age 95!! ( King Charles 2 endowed the Royal Mathematical School at Christ’s Hospital in 1673, and it took in students and trained them in naval skills required to become naval officers and merchant seamen.)

And there was the time that my father, with a hopeful heart, set me up for a daylong date with a young “Old Blue”, a recent graduate, who was travelling through the area! I took him around Vancouver for the day….he was a nice enough chap, but there were no sparks.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj_sMSnvPGDAxV7CjQIHchRDBUQFnoECAcQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.christs-hospital.org.uk%2F&usg=AOvVaw0riv_7p5EUmHl2pPLfnpj4&opi=89978449

(this link can be copied, pasted and searched if you’re interested to read more of the 470 year old history of the school, right up until today…a thriving co- ed (50/50) boarding school of 900 young people, aged 11 to 18. They still still have many benefactors so that children from many backgrounds who could not possibly afford an education like that are the majority of the yearly intake.)

Meanwhile, back in Buckinghamshire, John was busy with teaching and admin and sports at Brightwell School, and Peternal had started teaching at a girl’s school a couple of miles away at Little Wittenham, and Mary and Betty were at Wallingford Grammar School.

Sadly, John died suddenly of a stroke during the night, aged 49. It seems from the newspaper article that he had been under duress with work pressures. My father, Claude, fourteen years old, almost fifteen, was notified while at boarding school and returned at once by train to the town of Brightwell in Oxfordshire.

One day at a family gathering – my mother often gathered all six children from both his marriages for special occasions – our father shared with the older set of his children, that the loneliest day of his life was the day of his father’s funeral when he, age fourteen, walked alone behind his father’s coffin to the church and then on to the graveyard.

Interestingly, the town newspaper gives quite a vivid and detailed description of the event, and the service by the graveside, gave brief mention of the grieving family, but focused mainly on the school children and other children’s organizations in Brightwell cum Sotwell and their contributions and floral tributes in the service. I noticed also one note: “With the greatest sympathy from little Rosie Walker and her sister Doris, Little Wittenham”, which would have been from students at the girls school where Peternal was teaching at the time.

St Agatha’s Church and graveyard, where John Ernest Dolman is buried. https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/5801/

My paternal grandmother, Peternal, was only thirty three years of age when she became widowed in 1922. Census records don’t catch up to her until 1926. I am presuming she went back to her hometown Porthleven for some time, with Betty, aged 10. Claude returned to complete school at Horsham, and sister Mary at age 13 started boarding at the girl’s site of Christ’s Hospital in Hertford.

On a personal note, when as children we were brought by our parents to visit where our father grew up (Spring break 1972), the only thing I recall from Wallingford and Brightwell cum Sotwell ( apart from the interesting name of the towns! ) were the garden “allotments” on the edge of the town and my father explaining that people who lived in towns in England had their vegetable gardens in rented plots on the outskirts of town ( rather like today’s city community gardens). I recall he brought us to see the area where their family allotment had been! As my father himself was an avid gardener ( well into his 80’s!), of vegetables ( knowing when to add lime or ashes to which type of vegetable), as well as how to tend and propogate geraniums and roses, fuscias and fruit trees, I am making an educated guess that he inherited this interest and knowledge from his parents while living in Wallingford – my father was there from age four until age ten, and returned for school holidays until his father’s sudden death in 1922.

I do not recall going to the graveyard to see our grandfather’s grave in Brightwell, nor did we see our Granny Pet’s grave in Devoran. Nor my mother’s father’s grave in Vienna in 1969. I believe this was likely a wise decision of our parents….we would have been 15, 13 and 11 years old, and as all the graves had a traumatic memory for our parents, they likely decided not to bring us, but instead focused on places to show us where they had happy memories; a wise decision, i believe. 😊

Stay tuned for Part 4, where I will record what I know of my Granny Pet’s life from age 33, when she was widowed, until she passed away in her late sixties.

With gratitude again to my Cousin Tony ( on the Dolman side) and Cousin Rachel on the Cornish part of the family history.

Emily Jane Rabey Holloway: April 4, 1857 – January 31, 1937. Part 2: Peternal Emilie, her eldest daughter, my paternal grandmother.

Peternal Emilie Holloway Dolman was my father’s mother, my paternal grandmother. “Pet” was the fourth child and eldest daughter born to William and Emilie Holloway. She was born on April 4th, 1887 in Sythnie, Cornwall. She joined two older brothers, William and Claude, and had two younger sisters Lottie and Elsie ( and a little brother Tommy, who sadly died age 2), and they were reared in Porthleven. Her parents ran the local Commercial Hotel, situated right on the harbour of the small town, where fishing and boat building were the main businesses.

Behind the hotel. Pet is next to her brother Claude ( with a tear in the photo running through her face). To her left is her sister Lottie. Noting their mother’s black dress and the children’s serious faces, I wonder if this photo was perhaps taken after someone’s death….. Their sixth child, Thomas, had sadly died aged 2 1/2. ( i think of infection after being burned in a fire), but he was a year older than little Elsie (sitting on the stool in front of photo), so his death would have been 4 years or so earlier, when Pet was 5 years old. Or perhaps it was the custom in those days not to smile for photographs. It still is in some cultures today.

Scenes of the family by their hotel.

Peternal most likely attended the local church school. In the 1890’s in England, it was mandatory for children to attend school until age 11. We do have a newspaper photo of the Church of England school class in Porthleven in 1897, taken on occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee year, when Pet would then have been 10 years old. Peternal is not in the photo -perhaps she was helping out with the family business already or was absent from school that day – but her two younger sisters Lottie and Elsie are in the photo, and the schoolmaster was John Ernest Dolman, a young man with a very fine moustache.

John Dolman had come to Porthleven from Chenies, Buckinghamshire, as a very young teacher, age 23, in 1896. He faithfully spent ten years as teacher at the Church of England school connected to St. Bartholemew’s Anglican church. He had trained at Culham College, close to Oxford, which was known to be a fine teacher training College in its time. His younger sisters and his widowed mother also joined him in Porthleven for some of the time. John’s younger sister, Effie, Fanny Elizabeth, first moved down to help keep house for him; then she joined as an assistant teacher ( she is also in the 1897 photo above), so the youngest sister Caroline, also came to Porthleven to keep house for them. That’s what younger sisters did in those days😊

Here’s a link to the archives of Culham College with a bit of its history: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/915ab0f4-8adf-3020-9691-a9df646d337d

It seems that as it was in a rural setting, they not only focused on classroom subjects, but also had training in gardening and rural science and later added special education also. I believe the gardening rubbed off on my father as a young boy, and he continued to be an avid gardener well into his 80’s!

Pet’s father, William Holloway, died suddenly at age 39, of cardiovascular causes. Pet was twelve years old at the time and likely worked along with her brothers at the Commercial Hotel, of which the lease was renewed and run by their mother, my widowed Great- Grandmother, Emilie Jane.

I do not know when Schoolmaster, John ( Jack) Dolman and Pet’ s courtship began – perhaps he noticed his former primary school student, now blossomed into a young woman, at church or at the Commercial Hotel pub….or at the fish market! That part of the story I do not know, but they seem to have had a summer romance in 1905, when she was 18 and he was 32. They would have known she was with child sometime in October.
Wedding bans, as per Anglican tradition, were read for 3 consecutive Sundays at St. Bart’s starting in November, and they were married on December 18th, 1905.

Interestingly, John’s youngest sister, Caroline, met and married a general merchant also from Porthleven in October 1905. ( see church marriage registry above). My cousin Tony, who supplied me with many of these genealogical details, is the grandson of Effie Dolman, who was John’s assistant teacher. And, I just heard from Cousin Tony that his grandmother, Effie, also married a Cornishman, Bejamin Eddy, who was the older brother of her sister Caroline’s husband, Alfred Eddy. Their father ran a thriving fishing net business in Porthleven!

My father, Claude, named for his mother’s closest brother, was born on May 23, 1906, in Porthleven. In September of that year, Jack and Pet, along with baby Claude moved to Egloskerry, also in Cornwall, where John was Schoolmaster for four years. During this time, a little daughter, Mary was born to them, in 1908.

In 1910, the family moved to Wallingford in Berkshire, near to Oxford, where Jack was appointed to the Headmaster position in Brightwell Church Grammar School. The next year they had a third child, Charlotte ( Betty) who was born on my father’s 5th birthday.
My father was very fond of both his sisters throughout his life. The three siblings attended Brightwell school, and here’s a photo of them as adults visiting with their kindergarten schoolteacher, many decades later!!

Click to access FT-Froebels-principles-and-practice-today.pdf

I was thrilled to hear only recently from my cousin Tony that Peternal also began to teach once her children were older! She had a position of teacher at a girl’s school close to Brightwell, in Little Wittenham.

Although the family lived in Wallingford for twelve years, they did travel back to visit Cornwall and her family in Porthleven. My father describes himself swimming across the outer harbour as a boy, and what a feat that was. ( below, photographs of Porthleven inner and outer harbours, taken in December 2022, when Gary and I visited along with our son Tim and his wife, Erika.)

An aside: The history of Cornwall tells that Porthleven was a specially constructed safe harbour in an area that had many many shipwrecks! I could say much more on that….may expand one day. There was also piracy, and tin mining in the area, as well as boat building, fishing and an active port of call for ships. https://www.cornwall-calling.co.uk/gazetter-cornwall/porthleven.htm#:~:text=In%201811%20work%20began%20on,a%20dangerous%20and%20difficult%20harbour.

My father also spoke fondly of “Granny Holloway” in his boyhood, and I recently found a tiny New Testament she had given him when he was five years old!

Below: “Granny Holloway” with her three daughters, Lottie, Peternal and Elsie, and Pet’s three children, Claude, (my father), and younger sisters, Mary and Betty, ca.1913 or 1914.

The Holloway sisters: Peternal ( centre, age 26), and her sisters, Elsie, 22 and Lottie 24. ca. 1913.

In 1972, my father brought my mother, brothers and me to meet our Great Aunt Lottie and Great Aunt Elsie in Porthleven, where they both had lived all their lives, and telephoned each other daily when into their 90’s. Aunt Lottie took in their mother to live with her when she retired from the Commercial Hotel. They lived on Belvedere Terrace, which lined the inner harbour. Lottie lived to be almost 100 years old and her daughter Amy looked after her, also on Belvedere Terrace. I remember both great aunts were very old and had swollen legs and ankles, and i do especially remember Aunt Lottie’s face, looking as she does above as a young woman! Sadly, we never met our Granny Pet, who died in 1955 before we were born.

Bellvedere Terrace.     Great Aunt Elsie at her home with the blue door.

I’ll end this section with some photos of the beauty around Porthleven, perhaps some of the scenic paths that my paternal grandfather and grandmother took for romantic walks when they were courting, perhaps packing and enjoying a Cornish pastie lunch, or a piece of parsley pie! ( local Cornish fare that my Mum learned to make!)

Cornish pastie; St. Michael’s Mount in distance. Below, Philps pasties for lunch, Porthleven – recommend! During our visit, December 2022.

I’ve enjoyed imagining the relationship between my paternal grandparents, since i heard very little from my father while growing up, although I have recalled some of my father’s reflections and dropped comments that have come to mind…more to share next episode. I’m very thankful to my cousin Tony for filling in many details 🙂

Porthleven To Church Cove: Hiking The South West Coast Path