Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Ella Holland

18/01/1885 –18/07/1937

Daughter of Frank and Fanny Holland; worked as a domestic servant and Morocco leather factory hand

Relatives

Fanny Holland — mother

Francis (Frank) Holland — father

Emily Holland (1061) — other

Alfred Albert Holland (1061) — brother

• Jane Dickson

Plot 999 Ella Holland

 Ella Holland was born in Dagnall on 18^th January 1885, the sixth child of Francis (Frank) Holland of Little Gaddesden and Fanny née Mead of Hudnall. When she was born, her family lived at Malting Lane Cottage in Dagnall and her father worked as a gardener.

 Ella had three older brothers: William Henry, born in 1872, Herbert James born in 1874 and Alfred Albert Holland was born in Dagnall on 20^th September 1878. A fourth, Walter, had been born in 1881 but died aged 10 months and was buried at St Mary’s Edlesborough on 23^rd February 1882.

 Ella also had an older sister, Florence Annie, born on 14^th August 1883. A younger sister Beatrice, born in the 3^rd Quarter of 1887, died as an infant and was buried at St Mary’s Edlesborough, so Ella was Frank and Fanny’s youngest surviving child.

 Her family lived in Dagnall until June 1889 when they moved to Whipsnade. On 17^th June 1889, Ella and her sister Florence entered Whipsnade National School. 4 year old Ella was starting school while Florence, who was nearly 6, had previously attended school in Dagnall.

 The 1891 Census shows Ella’s family at The Green, Whipsnade. Her father 41 year old Frank continued to work as a gardener. Her brothers Henry, 19, Herbert, 16 and Albert, 12 were all agricultural labourers while Ella, 6 and Florence, 7 attended Whipsnade School. However, the girls’ School Admission Register entries show that they left the village on 4^th May 1893.

 By 1901 Ella, her parents and her siblings Alfred, 22 and Florence, 17, had moved to 63 Gossoms End.  Both 16 year old Ella and Florence had gone into service, as was common for young women from poorer households at the time. They were both working as housemaids but were at home with their parents on Census night. Their father was a farm cattleman, while their brother Alfred a wood turning machinist at East’s timber yard.

 Ten years later, Ella and her parents lived at 6 Shrublands Avenue, Berkhamsted. Her father Frank, by then 61 was a nursery labourer. Ella’s employment was recorded as “Morocco Factory Hand”.

 In 1902, Mr Thomas Child, a Morocco Leather dresser of Bermondsey, had moved to Berkhamsted and set up a Morocco Leather Factory in Park Street. The 1911 Census shows Thomas and his son Reginald at 15 Park Street working as Morocco Leather dressers. Thomas was the employer, working on his own account, at home. According to information in an article in the Herts Advertiser of 22^nd March 1902, this factory, hardly known among the people of Berkhamsted, employed some fourteen skilled workers.¹

 Morocco leather was used in bookbinding, purses and high-class furniture upholstery. The raw material was goat skin “from all parts of the world, chiefly Switzerland and the hilly countries suited to the climbing habits of the animals”. The goat skins were “denuded of hair” then tanned, dyed and dried, after which “several strapping fellows” worked to give grain and polish to the leather by a rather complicated pressing process. In another room, women then completed the process, ruffling the leather to raise tiny elevations on the dressed side to produce the fine, finished product. It is likely that this was the stage of production in which Ella was employed by 1911. The Herts Advertiser article notes: “Throughout, the processes appear to require a considerable amount of skill on the part of the worker, and the trade is, apparently, one of those where great differences exist between the workers in the matter of natural ability and earning power.”¹

 Ella did not marry. By 1921, aged 36, she was back in domestic service. She worked as a cook, one of two servants (the other a parlour maid) at Angleside in Doctor’s Commons Road, Berkhamsted. Her employers were Major and Mrs Geoffrey Whitfield. He had served in the 1^st Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment during the First World War, then returned to his pre-War occupation as a manufacturer of photographic plates and papers at the Amalgamated Photographic Manufacturers Ltd. in Watford.

 By 1921 there is no mention of the Morocco Leather Factory in Park Street. Thomas Child and his family were living in Harrow and he, by then aged 69, had retired. His son Reginald managed Geo. Pearce & Co Morocco & Fancy Leather Manufacturer in Lambeth. Maybe the small Berkhamsted factory, producing leather for luxury goods and reliant on imported raw materials, had not survived the First World War?

 1929 and 1930 Electoral Registers shows Ella living at Helmsley, Montague Road, Berkhamsted, with Harry Ward Frost and Constance Annie Frost. These Registers give no information on employment but she is likely to have been still in domestic service. However, the 1930 Register also show both Ella and her sister Florence with their parents at 6 Shrublands Avenue.

 Ella’s address at the time of her death was Hempstead House, Hemel Hempstead. Located in Allendale Road this had, until 1930, been the Hemel Hempstead Workhouse, which included a 224 bed infirmary housing patients who were aged, infirm or chronically ill. In May 1936 the Berkhamsted workhouse closed and Hempstead House became responsible for the poor, including the sick poor, of the entire Dacorum Guardians Committee area. In 1948, when the National Health Service started, it became St Paul’s Hospital.²

 As Ella’s mother still lived at 6 Shrublands Avenue, it is likely that Ella entered Hempstead House as the result of illness. She died, aged 52, on 18^th July 1937 and was buried in this cemetery three days later, the service taken by Ezra E W Ramm, Methodist Minister.

 Five days after Ella’s death, her mother Fanny Holland died and was buried in Plot 1000, where her father Frank Holland had been buried on 24^th October 1935. Ella’s brother Alfred Holland and sister-in-law Emily Holland are also buried here, in Plot 1061.

 References

1.       The Herts Advertiser, 22^nd March 1902. Industries of Herts – Berkhampstead and its Trades – Tenth Special Article.

The Workhouse in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire (workhouses.org.uk)