Horses had played such a central part in the life of my 2x great grandfather Joseph Holland (1851-1914). They had led him away from a rural labouring life in Stony Houghton, Derbyshire, to the then relatively dimmed lights of South East London, where his occupation was that of a coachman groom.
After marrying Julia Barrett (1856-1918) in St Mary’s, Lewisham on 1 March 1874, at some point soon after, Joseph’s work with horses as a coachman took him to Dublin, Ireland for almost a decade. They had four of their children in the city, where at one point, they lived on Mount Drummond Avenue. By 1884, they were back in South East London, settling back in Deptford, and they had the first of another four children. In amongst them, one further child was born in 1886, recorded as being at Hockliffe, Bedfordshire, which lies on a crossroads on the old roman road known as Watling Street, now the A5. This may have been one of the main stagecoach routes between London and the North West, and even onto ports to Dublin. I believe that Joseph Holland’s work in the 1870s and early 1880s could very well have been as a stagecoach driver, or driving cabs for officers or other wealthy families.
Once he had settled back into life in South East London, census returns, and marriage certificates of his children recorded Joseph as being in more labouring jobs, but more often still with horses. He was a ‘carman’ (a driver of horse drawn delivery vehicles), a ‘carman in a coal yard’ and a ‘farm labourer’. The family appear to have lived in what was then called Regent Street (off Deptford High Street) in the 1891 Census; Baildon Street, Deptford in the 1901 Census; Morley Road Charlton in the 1911 Census; and then Shooters Hill Road on his death certificate in 1914.
Disaster struck on 8 June 1914 when he died “due to injuries received consequent on being run over by a horse and cart” in the words of his death certificate. The place of death was the Cottage Hospital on Shooters Hill Road, and at the time of death, he was living on Shooters Hill.
To die under a horse makes his death that more tragic, given his decades of service with horses. He was 63 years old and appears to have been taken earlier than would otherwise have been expected. He was survived by his wife, who died four years later. I remember being traumatised as a child by a Dick Francis TV drama where a jockey had a life changing injury to his hand following a fall. I had nightmares for years to come about him being trampled by the horse.
I feel a great affinity with Joseph. After his work in Dublin which still maintains an element of mystery, he built his family over three decades on the streets of Deptford. By total coincidence without any knowledge, I ended up living in the neighbouring streets of New Cross and Telegraph Hill, and would often walk through the ghosts of the streets they inhabited in Deptford when connecting through to work in Greenwich. How does that happen?
You can read more about other relations of Joseph, and some background on him in links to other weeks:- a post on his father John Holland (Week 25); a post on his son, my great grandfather Charles William Holland (Week 1); and a mention in conjunction with horses on the family tree (Week 18).
Thank you for reading this post for Week 35 of the #52Ancestors project which is on the theme of ‘Disaster’. If you have any queries, or wish to clarify or correct anything, please do not hesitate to get in touch. Hope to see you again next week.
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