The Randwick Hollyers

The numbers of Holliers around the world makes assembling them into families a challenge at times. But with the less numerous Hollyer and Holyer families, most have been connected, even those outside the UK. But there was one Hollyer family in Australia which for a long time defied attempts to locate them in the wider Hollyer trees.

The family was resident at Randwick in New South Wales, Australia. It was the death indexes (publicly available to much more recent times than births or marriages) that first brought this family to my attention. All the other Hollyers were known, but three records from Randwick and another from Bondi didn’t readily fit:

Registration Number	Last Name	Given Name(s)	Father's Given Name(s)	Mother's Given Name(s)	District
17203/1954	HOLLYER	WALTER	EBENEZER CHARLES	LOUISA	BONDI
27269/1946	HOLLYER	CHARLES EDWARD	80 YRS RANDWICK		RANDWICK
9488/1919	HOLLYER	LOUISA	JOHN	LOUISA	RANDWICK
16489/1915	HOLLYER	JOHN T	WALTER A	GERTRUDE S	RANDWICK

On its own, not much of this made sense. I couldn’t identify Walter, Charles or Ebenezer, so I put the problem aside.

Some time later, I came across some Australian Attestation papers from the First World War. Amongst these was a 1915 record for Walter Alexander Hollyer. This provided some valuable information. It stated that Walter Alexander was 42 years old, born in London, Middlesex, a Plumber by profession with a wife Gertrude living at Melton Howard Street in Randwick. This sounded very interesting as there were of course many London born Hollyers who took up jobs as Plumbers, Painters and Glaziers. The problem remained that if Walter Alexander was born in London circa 1873, there is no known birth record, no father called Ebenezer and no records in the various censuses of a Walter Hollyer of the right age. The only known Walter Hollyer is the one born in 1853 whose history is now well known, serving for many years in the army, in particular in India.

The next set of records that included Walter and Gertrude which came to light were the Electoral Roll data. This shows that in 1930 and 1936, Walter and Gertrude were registered voters in Randwick, while elsewhere in Randwick was another Plumber, Charles Ernest Hollyer, who perhaps is the ‘Charles Edward’ who died in 1946.

The latest records to emerge that throw light on this family come from ship passenger and crew lists for ships in Australian waters. This shows that in 1879, the SS Parramatta sailing from London to Sydney had amongst its passengers:

Louisa Hollyer

Louisa Hollyer

Charles Hollyer

Walter Hollyer

Flora Hollyer

Two Louisas would suggest mother and daughter, one of whom we must presume died in 1919, probably the mother given the difference in parents from Walter. In 1879, Walter would have been about 6 and perhaps the others were Louisa’s children too. But like Walter, the birth indexes and censuses contain no records relating to Louisa, Charles Ernest and Flora. Furthermore, all the possible Louisas who had the name Hollyer as a maiden or married name and who could have been Walter’s mother are ‘accounted for’.

This leaves us with the conclusion that the family were not Hollyers at all. But the Parramatta entries could not be a simple transcription error (e.g. Hellyer), as we have seen that all the later references use the name Hollyer too.

I decided to search the UK 1871 census for possible clues. Ancestry searches provided no help, but then I remembered that Findmypast allow you to specify one other name present in the family. So I did a search for an Ebenezer C with Louisa in the family.

This search produced a clutch of records, but this one stood out:

Hammersmith, London RG10 63/12/15

Ebenezer C Cole	H	M	36	Shopkeeper	MDX Billingsgate
Louisa do.	W	M	34		MDX Islington
Louisa A do.	D		6		Islington
Charles E do.	S		4		Islington
Walter A do.	S		8mo		Hornsey
Walter Jackson	Cousin		14		Clerkenwell

The Ancestry index had Ebenezer listed as Charezer, so no wonder I didn’t find it through that site.

The match to the ‘Hollyer’ family on the Parramatta seems perfect. It becomes even stronger when the birth indexes reveal the following:

Louisa Anne Cole Islington Q4 1864

Charles Ernest Cole Islington Q2 1867

Walter Alexander Cole Edmonton Q1 1871

The marriage of the parents seems to be Ebenezer Charles Cole to Louisa Hunter Clerkenwell Q4 1863; so Ebenezer’s middle name is also a match. Louisa Hunter may be the Louisa, daughter of John Hunter, a Compositor born in Belfast and his wife Amelia – not a complete match to the names on the 1919 death index entry.

This leaves the puzzle of why Louisa Cole and her family emigrated to Australia as the ‘Hollyer’ family. I couldn't establish any definite link between the Cole or Hunter families and the Hollyers. The only possible connection is that in the 1851 census, the Hunter family are at 9 Glebe Terrace, Islington, close by to the family of Richard & Louisa Hollyer at 4 Glebe Terrace. Richard and Louisa’s family included their daughter Louisa Jackson – could there have been Jackson connection given the Walter Jackson in the 1871 census with the Cole family? Hard to say, as Louisa’s husband John William Jackson is an enigma himself and aside from his marriage certificate stating his father as Samuel Jackson, I know little about him. He and Louisa seemed to have separated. Walter Jackson appears to have been the son of Henry Jackson (another Compositor) and his wife Harriett.

What happened to Ebenezer? I have been unable to locate him in any other census, except perhaps the 1841 (son of Sarah Cole), and I haven’t found a death record for him. Another part of this mysterious story.

As so often happens, I am triggered to dig deeper into outstanding problems when I am contacted by a family descendant and such was the case here. Kerry Peachey, who is a descendant of the family, found this article while trying to solve the puzzle of why grandmother Marjorie Butler (nee Hearne) recorded her mother's name as Louisa Annie Hollyer on her marriage certificate when the family had always referred to her as Louisa Cole (née Hunter). I got hold of the marriage certificate of Ebenezer and Louisa and this confirmed their parents. I also found their baptisms on Ancestry, confirming that John Hunter the compositor was Louisa's father. I also found Ebenezer in the 1851 census. I was studying the Glebe Terrace Hollyer family when I realised that the son Joseph Shallis Hollyer, born 1824 and married 1849 then seems to disappear from UK records and is not found until his death in Waterloo, New South Wales, Australia in 1890. As Waterloo and Randwick are both close suburbs of Sydney, it becamae clear that Louisa changed her name to join Joseph in Australia as his wife, though no actual marriage has been found. Kerry looked up various street directories and this confirms that they were living as a family together. So this partly solves the Randwick Hollyer mystery, but still leaves several unfinished strands. If Louisa went to Australia in 1879, you would have thought that Joseph would also have emigrated not long before, yet no sign is found of Joseph from 1851 through to the directory listings in NSW in 1890. And what happened to Ebenezer? Again, no sign.