My mum recounted a tale of when she was young someone asked her if she was George Holland’s lass.  It was an unusual question as her surname was Brooke and her dad’s name was George Brooke.  However, the question wasn’t as strange as first appeared as he had been known for part of his life as George Holland.

George’s mother was called Ellen (Nellie) Holland.  She was born in Thornhill-Lees, Dewsbury in 1876, the third daughter of James Walter Holland and Mary Sarsbury.

James Holland was born in Rickinghall, Suffolk in 1850 to Martha Holland who was unmarried at the time of James’ birth.  We have no record of who James’ father was.  Soon after James’ birth, Martha married Thomas Driver with Thomas becoming James’ adoptive father.  James grew up in Rickinghall and worked as an agricultural labourer.  At some point after 1871 he met a Mary Ann Sarsbury who lived in the village of Wood Dalling in Norfolk, some 40 miles away from Rickinghall.  How they met, I have no idea.

Shortly after they met it looks like James Holland and Mary Ann Sarsbury left East Anglia and moved to the industrial north: to Durham.  The 1800’s saw a crisis in agriculture in places like Suffolk and people were encouraged to migrate from these areas to the heart of the industrial north where jobs were plentiful.  It looks like this is what James and Mary Ann did.  Their eldest  daughter Harriet was born in 1871, but their second daughter, Alice, was born three years later in Durham.  According to the only record I can find (an annotation of some of the children’s baptism records) they married in Middlesborough in around 1874…perhaps on the way to Durham at around the time of their second daughter’s birth. I’ve yet to find an actual record of a marriage though.  I do wonder whether they actually ever married, but just said that they had when they had their children baptised in Thornhill: Nellie, George and John were all baptised together in September 1881.

It looks like they didn’t stay in Durham for long – making their way down to Dewsbury by 1876 and was settled in Charlesworth Street in Dewsbury, with James working as a greengrocer. Charlesworth Street was just down the road from the Kilner glass factory (made famous by Jeremy Clarkson when he did “Who Do You Think You Are”).

James’ mother, Martha, along with her husband Thomas followed James to Dewsbury and settled there too.

It looks like his commercial venture didn’t do so well: on the 11th September 1889 he was convicted of owing money and spent 7 nights in Wakefield prison.  In 1901 he is living at No.1 Thornfield, Dewsbury, as general labourer. Spookily, I lived in that same street as a baby, nearly 60 years later.

By 1911 he is living out towards Ravensthorpe with his wife and three of their daughters and a variety of grandchildren.

Mary died in 1916: James died in 1932.   James’ mother, Martha died in 1902.  Thomas had died in 1895 and she had gone to live with her daughter Sarah and her husband Joshua Whittell in Leeds.

James and Mary’s daughter Nellie, also known as Ellen (my gt. grandmother) married twice: firstly to William Henry Atack, a coal miner.  They married on the 16th April 1900 and just over a year later their daughter Dorothy Maud was born.  Sadly,18 months later, William died and Nellie was left a widow with a young daughter.

On the 23rd September 1905 Nellie married for the second time.  Her new husband was called Harry Ellis Brooke, a coal engineer from Deighton just outside Huddersfield.  He was a widower with a young daughter Norah Gertrude from his first marriage to Mary Haigh.  Mary had died in 1901 when Norah was just six years old.

Harry and Nellie set up home with their now blended family, living with James Walter and his family at 1 Thornfield.

Sadly this marriage was not fated to last: Harry died on the 10th December 1908 after a year long illness suffering from a brain tumour.

In just over a period of eight years Nellie had been twice widowed and was once more left as a single parent with a seven year old daughter and a 13-year old step daughter.

It looks like Nellie continued to live with her parents after Harry had died: in April of 1911, Nellie, Dorothy and Norah – along with Harry’s sister Alice are all living with James and Mary and Nellie’s sisters Alice, Harriet, and Lizzie and Harriet’s two-year old daughter Mary. They were sharing five rooms at 13 Ravensfield Road on the way out of Dewsbury towards Mirfield.  The sisters were all working as weavers.

What was perhaps not known at the time was that Nellie was also pregnant.

According to his birth certificate, Grandad was born on the 24th November 1911 at Wellhouse Lane in Mirfield.  His name on the Birth Certificate is George Brooke: Nellie’s name being given as Nellie Brooke on the birth certificate.  There’s no obvious connection to Wellhouse Lane, but we do know that an institution called St Agnes House run by the Church of England’s Waifs & Strays Society was on Wellhouse Lane, so I’m speculating that she went there to have the baby, or perhaps, having giving birth elsewhere, she gave him to the Society for them to care for him.

We do know is that Grandad was fostered out to a family when he was a young baby, but again I’ve no idea where.

We also know that at some time, Nellie’s sister, Lizzie, took Grandad away from his foster family as he was clearly being neglected.  She chose to raise him as her own.  When this happened again is another unknown, but family say he was very young.  Lizzie didn’t marry until 1915, and I’m not sure whether this was before or after she married.

If we fast forward to 1921, George is recorded as living as an adopted with son with Lizzie, her husband Herbert, their son Vyner and another Holland cousin – Harold – who had been orphaned.  George is called George Holland and it is noted that his father is dead, but there is no mention of his mother.  In fact, in the same census, Nellie is back at 13 Ravensfield Rd with Dorothy and Norah.  There is a section where married women, widowers and widows are supposed to provide details of the number of living children under the age of 16, even if they are listed elsewhere in the census.  Nellie says she has none.

Lizzie’s husband was Herbert Atack: a brother of Nellie’s first husband William.  Their son Vyner was born in 1919 and he and Grandad were brought up as brothers rather than cousins.  He believed that Nellie was his aunt and it wasn’t until he was older that he found out that the woman he had called his aunt was actually his mother.

Vyner and George remained friends throughout their lives and I remember Vyner popping round to see Grandad on a Saturday so they could go down to the pub.

Nellie never admitted the name of George’s father.

Nellie later went to live with her daughter, Dorothy.  Dorothy had married an Arthur Smith in 1926 and they moved down to Eastleigh in Hampshire.  On the 21st June 1942 Dorothy was injured when a German bomb was dropped on Eastleigh.  She died of her injuries on the 30th June 1942 – the same day as her niece’s 2nd birthday.

Nellie died on the 19th April 1956 at the home in Eastleigh that she shared with her son-in-law.  She was 79 years old.

The family have often wondered about the identity of George’s father, but had sort of resigned to the fact that we would never know.  Grandad apparently did try to get his mother to say who is father was, but she never would.

The ability to decode DNA has revolutionised the ability of people to find unknown relatives.

In 2018, I had my DNA analysed and this has enable me to make contact with other members of my extended family.  Intriguingly, I have a cluster of DNA matches from one family with no obvious connection.  The amount of DNA that we share indicates that we probably share a gt. grandparent.  The only gt. grandparent that I do not know is grandad’s father.  Is this a clue to grandad’s unknown father?  With the help of my matches we have managed to identify two possible candidates, of which one lived fairly close to Nellie at the time of George’s conception.  Of course, this is pure speculation, albeit an informed one, but we are really no closer to a firm answer.  Perhaps I should say, watch this space.