Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Edwin Dolling

1834 –1881

A groom and husband of Emma Dolling

Relatives

Ernest Dolling — brother

Emma Dolling — wife

Alfred Dolling — other

Henry James Dolling — son

• Melanie Hilton

Unmarked grave Edwin Dolling (1834-1881)

Edwin was born in 1834 in Redbourn, the son of George and Ann Dolling. His father was a labourer. He worked as a groom, but by 1851 he was out of work and living with his aunt and uncle Hall in Redbourn, along with his brother Ernest, also out of work, and their sister Mary Ann.

Edwin married Emma Lismer, a straw plaiter from Northchurch, in Berkhamsted in early 1861. By then he was back in employment as a stableman, working in Hemel Hempstead. Emma was heavily pregnant with their first child at the time and her obituary on this site sets out the implications for such a disgrace for the daughter of a respectable family of shopkeepers and small property owners.

In 1871 they were living in Bridge Street with their four sons and one daughter aged between 10 and 2. Their address in 1873, when Edwin was charged with keeping two of his sons from school, was given as Canal Side.

Ten years later, in 1881, the family, now numbering four boys and five girls, one only 2 days old, were living in the less than salubrious Red Lion Yard. The dwellings were overcrowded, dilapidated and filthy.

At least Edwin was in work as a groom, the two oldest boys were brush makers, another was a labourer and the oldest girl was a straw plaiter, so there was some income for the household of eleven.

But Edwin was to die in December of that year aged 47. He was buried 24 December leaving his large family to face serious poverty.

His son Henry James (died 1917) and his brother Ernest (died 1879) both lie in this cemetery in unmarked graves