William Stoliday (1809-1903) and Sarah Rose (1817-1886)

William Stoliday (1809-1903) and Sarah Rose (1817-1886).
My 3rd great-grandparents.

William Stoliday – or Stolyday/Stolady depending on the record – was born on 29 July 1809 and baptised the day after in All Saints Church, Rackheath, Norfolk, a village about six miles north-east of Norwich. His parents were James Stoliday and Mary Gay and the family, like most in the area, worked in agriculture. 

On 31 March 1835 William married Sarah Rose, who’d been born in 1817 in the nearby village of Salhouse and baptised on 7 September that year in the parish church of All Saints. Her parents were farmer Robert Rose and Hannah Holsworth. 

In the 1841 census record, William was listed as an agricultural labourer and his family were living in Lower Street, Salhouse. By 1851 he was working as a carter – a driver of horse-drawn vehicles – and living in Norwich Road, Salhouse. The Norfolk News of 25 October 1856 reported a case involving a William Stoliday, who charged his landlord Bartholomew Farman of stealing his money. Was this William or his oldest living son? William told magistrates that he’d been given notice to quit his cottage and was upstairs when Farman and three other men burst into the property, threw him downstairs and hurled him out of the house. He claimed Farman had his hand in one of his pockets and that he later realised that a key and about £10 was missing. Defence lawyers told the court that Farman had pulled the key from Stoliday’s pocket when he refused to hand it over, and his purse had fallen out with it. Farman had picked it up, counted out £2 17s 6d and given it back to Stoliday. The magistrates concluded that Farman was innocent and dismissed the charge.

In the 1861 census William Snr was again listed as an agricultural labourer, as were his teenage sons Thomas and Edward. In 1871 he was living in Cottage Kiln Road and 1881 in Main Road, Salhouse, with his wife, his daughter Mary Ann and her husband James Fox along with their baby boy Edward. William was still listed as an agricultural labourer but by 1891 he was living with the Foxes and said to be receiving parish allowances.

There’s no record of him in the 1901 census but William died at the venerable age of 94 in 1903. He was buried in Salhouse on 28 October. The burial record shows that he died in St Faith’s, which probably refers to the workhouse in Horsham St Faith that cared for the elderly and infirm. Sarah had died in 1886 and was buried in Salhouse on 4 July that year.

William and Sarah’s sometimes troubled children included:

• Henry Stoliday (1835-1835), my 2nd great-grand uncle. Baptised on 28 June 1835 at All Saints Church in Salhouse, Norfolk, Henry died just a few months later. He was buried in the village on 24 September.
• William Stoliday (1836-1930), my 2nd great-grand uncle. William became an agricultural labourer, married several times and had brushes with the law.
• John Stoliday (1839-????), my 2nd great-grand uncle. Born in 1839 in Salhouse, Norfolk, John was baptised on 10 March 1839 at All Saints’ Church. He crops up later in the 1841 and 1851 censuses living in the village with his family, but then his trail goes cold for a while. The Norfolk News of 22 June 1867 reported that a John Stolliday, labourer of St Faith’s, was sent to prison for a month at Shire Hall in Norwich ‘for leaving his master’s service’. I don’t know whether they’re the same person but it’s more than likely based on the lack of alternative candidates. John is missing from the 1871 and 1881 censuses and doesn’t appear again until the 1880s in Surrey, when someone by his name is shown on electoral registers living at either Plantation Row in York Town, Camberley, or at Willey Green in Worplesden. Labourer John Stolliday (father William) was married to a Betsy Stiles at St John’s Church in Hale, Surrey, on 12 November 1887 but she was admitted to Brookwood Asylum in Surrey on 10 May 1888 suffering from ‘mania’, described as the wife of a labourer living at Plantation Row. She was still registered as a patient in the 1891 census and her death was registered in Guildford in the first quarter of 1905. Curiously, though, a John Stoliday married a Harriet Wallace in 1890 (the event registered in Guildford). The 1891 census shows the couple living in Worplesden, Surrey, she described as a dressmaker from Bisley in Surrey, and he from Salhouse in Norfolk. Records from Guildford Workhouse record Harriet dying on 4 December 1894, with a note that she was buried by friends. So were these different John Stolidays, did he divorce or was he a bigamist? The latter looks to be most likely. I’ve not found any other references to him after Harriet’s death so his fate is a mystery.
• Henry Stoliday (1841-????), my 2nd great-grand uncle. Henry got in trouble with the law and emigrated to Australia.
• Robert Stoliday (1844-????), my 2nd great-grand uncle. Born in 1844 in Salhouse, Norfolk, Robert was baptised there on 26 May. He married Rosanna Hardingham, who was baptised in Salhouse on 12 May 1850, at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on 20 December 1866. They had a son, John Robert Stoliday, in 1870 in Great Yarmouth but he died the same year. But then the records for Robert become limited and he is notably absent from many census returns. A Rosanna Stoliday died in Northumberland in 1873, and this is almost certainly his wife considering the lack of other candidates. Also, a Robert Stolliday appeared on the electoral rolls at Robinson Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland, in 1876. It’s possible that he ended up in Essex as the 1891 census records Norfolk-born general labourer Robert living at Grays, Thurrock, Essex, with his housekeeper Emily North (nee Flack) and three children carrying her surname. The 1901 census, which showed that Robert was working at a cement works, suggests that the couple had married and had more children, although I’ve yet to find a marriage certificate. The children, however, had their births registered with the North surname so it looks as if they couple actually remained unmarried. They were Phillis, William John, Albert Frank and Violet Rose. It’s possible that Emily’s other children were also Robert’s. Robert’s death was registered in Essex in 1909.
• Thomas Stoliday (1846-1926), my 2nd great-grand uncle. Thomas was born in Salhouse, Norfolk, in 1846 and baptised on 4 October that year at All Saints’ Church. He grew up in the village before moving to Great Yarmouth and marrying Matilda George, on 21 December 1871. She came from the village of Caister, a few miles north of Yarmouth, and was probably born in 1852. At the time of her marriage she was working as a silk weaver, he as a sailor. The 1881 census shows a Thomas Stolliday as master of the fishing vessel the Queen, even though he was said to have been born in Norwich in about 1849. He crops up in 1891 living with his family at 32 Row 93 in Great Yarmouth, listed as a fisherman. In 1901 they had moved to 11 Row 129 but he was still earning his living from the sea. In 1911 he was at 107 Exmouth Road and was working as a seaman on a steam tug. He’s likely to be the Thomas Stolliday referred to in a report in the Norfolk News of 4 February 1911, who suffered a nasty accident at work when the steamer Scarsdale was being towed through the harbour at Yarmouth by the tug King Edward VII. As another vessel attempted to pass, a tow rope got caught and brought down the tug’s mast, which fell on Thomas’s arm. He was taken to Gorleston Cottage Hospital for treatment on the lacerations and was expected to make a full recovery. Matilda senior died in 1912 and was buried at Caister Borough Cemetery on 7 December, with the Yarmouth Mercury of 14 December reporting that she’d suffered a long and painfull illness. Thomas, now a night watchman, was living in Exmouth Road with his daughter Gertrude at the 1921 census. He died in 1926 and was buried on 29 April 1926 at Caister. Thomas and Matilda had at least seven children:
  • Thomas Samuel Stoliday was born in Great Yarmouth in 1872 and worked as a fisherman there, marrying local woman Ellen Bullent in 1892. They had children and moved to Wales, where the 1901 census recorded them in Steynton, Pembrokeshire. He continued to work at sea but Ellen died in 1903. Thomas married Helen Hannam in 1913 and was listed as a fisherman cook (retired) in the 1939 Register. He died later that year.
  • Walter John Stoliday, born in 1874 in Great Yarmouth, he worked as a hairdresser and married Mary Ann Read in 1895. They emigrated with their children to Canada in 1903 and were living in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, in 1906. By 1911 they were in Vancouver, Walter working as a reporter. He died there in 1930.
  • Matilda Elizabeth Stoliday was born in Great Yarmouth in 1877, worked as a weaver and machinist as a young woman and married painter Ernest Robert Nicholson in 1902. They had a family and remained in Yarmouth. She died in 1957, Ernest the following year.
  • Albert Edward Stoliday was born in Great Yarmouth in 1881 and married Louisa Catherine Hancock in 1901. They lived in her home town of Nottingham and he worked on the railways. He died in 1951, his wife in 1959.
  • Gertrude Victoria Stoliday was born in Great Yarmouth in 1881 and died at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in 1936. She remained single.
  • Isaac Sidney Samuel Stoliday was born in Great Yarmouth in 1888 and moved to Portsmouth in Hampshire, where he worked as a shipbuilder. He married Rose May Green in 1912 but died in 1927. She died in 1962.
  • Edith Mary Stoliday was born in Great Yarmouth in 1894 and married William Bradshaw of Cheshire in 1920.
• Edward Stoliday (1849-1938), my 2nd great-grandfather. He made his living in Great Yarmouth as a fisherman.
• Hannah Maria Stoliday (1851-1932), my 2nd great-grand aunt. She ended up with three marriages to her name and in trouble with the law.
• Joseph Stoliday (1854-????), my 2nd great-grand uncle. Born in 1854 and baptised on 24 December that year at All Saints Church in Salhouse, Joseph was working as an agricultural labourer there as a teenager. Is he the Joseph Stoliday in the 1881 census working as a fisherman, working on board the James and Ellen out of Great Yarmouth? He may also be the man who married Mary Ann Gray in the town on 21 December 1882, living in the depressingly named Gaol Street. Their trail then goes cold although a Mary Ann Stolliday, born in around 1860, was in the Yarmouth Workhouse at the time of the 1891 census and died there in June 1893.
• James Stoliday (1854-????), my 2nd great-grand uncle. James was born in 1857 in Salhouse, one of several children by the name born in the region around this time. His name was registered officially as James Stolliday, his mother’s maiden name given as Rose. He grew up with his family in the village but the 1881 census records him as a fisherman on board the George & Elizabeth out of Great Yarmouth, a vessel captained by Richard Bryant of Whitechapel in London. James married Phoebe Allen, daughter of labourer Robert Allen, on 1 July 1879 in the town’s St Nicholas’s Church. The couple were living at 21 Row 107 in Great Yarmouth at the time of the 1881 census but they are missing from the 1891 survey. Baptism records, however, suggest that they were living in and around South Shields, County Durham, from some point in the 1880s. James died from an aortic aneurysm in 1899 at the Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital in Greenwich, south east London. The hospital record shows that James was a member of the crew of the Stanley out of Boston, Lincolnshire, which was owned by an S Waddington. He’d been in hospital for 65 days but why in Greenwich is a mystery. Phoebe next crops up in the 1901 and 1911 censuses living in South Shields with her children. Phoebe died there in 1919. The couple had a number of children:
  • James Stolliday was born in Great Yarmouth in 1880 and became a grocer in South Shields. He married Ann Driver in 1905, raised a family and died in December 1962. Ann followed just weeks later in January 1963.
  • Florence Elizabeth Stolliday was born in Great Yarmouth in 1882. She married shipyard worker Benjamin Burgon in 1908 at North Shields, but he died in 1917. By 1921 she was living and working as a shopkeeper in Wallsend and in 1933 married a William Phillips, another shipyard labourer. Florence died in 1959.
  • Robert William Stolliday was born in South Shields in 1884 and married local woman Lillian Dixon there in 1910. He worked in the mines and died in 1944.
  • John Edward Stolliday was born in South Shields in 1885, married Martha Davy in 1910 and raised a family. He worked as a coal miner in County Durham for much of his life, dying in 1969. Martha died in 1976.
  • Philip Stolliday was born in South Shields in 1890 and married Elizabeth Godwin in 1912. They had a family and he worked in the mines. He died in 1972 Elizabeth in 1977.
  • Olive Marion Stolliday was born in South Shields in 1893, stayed local and married shipwright Thomas Lazenby in 1914. She died in 1974, Thomas 10 years later.
• Mary Ann Stoliday (1859-1962), my 2nd great-grand aunt. Born in Salhouse, Norfolk on 29 July 1859, Mary Ann grew up in the village and lived in the area all her life. She married farm worker James George Fox, who was born locally in 1856, in 1880. They raised their family in Salhouse but the 1911 census shows they’d moved to neighbouring Woodbastwick. Mary Ann would live there, in a cottage at The Green, for the rest of her life. James died in 1928 and was buried on 8 October that year but Mary Ann lived to an advanced age – 103 in fact. She died in October 1962 and was buried in Woodbastwick on the 31st. The couple had at least five children: Edward James Fox (1880-1961) who served in the Royal Marines Light Infantry until 1934; Herbert Arthur Fox (1883-????), who served in the Royal Navy; Florence Sarah Fox (1887-1973); Hannah Rosina Fox (1889-????); and Olive Marion Fox (1892-1979).
• George Stoliday (1862-1939), my 2nd great-grand uncle. George was born in Salhouse, Norfolk, in the summer of 1862 but he wasn’t baptised in All Saints’ Church until 12 October 1873. He was working as an agricultural labourer in the village at the time of the 1881 census but 10 years later he was lodging in the rows of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and working as a fisherman. Shortly after he signed up for 12 years of service in the Royal Navy, although he didn’t retire until 1919. He chose to give his birth date as 14 June 1868. George worked as a stoker, shovelling coal into the furnaces that powered the steam vessels, climbing through the ranks until he became a stoker petty officer. In this capacity he was based at the shore training establishment HMS Ganges during the First World War. Among the ships George served on were HMS Howe, part of the Mediterranean Fleet from 1893-1896; HMS Goliath from 1900-1903 when it was on the China Station; and HMS Blenheim in the Med in the years before the First World War. In September 1915 he received the RN Good Conduct Medal, which was given for long service, and later collected the standard set of First World War medals. George married Mary Elizabeth Littlewood on 20 January 1897 at All Saints Church in Salhouse, Norfolk. She was born in 1871 in the village and continued to live there while raising a family and George was at sea. They had two sons: George Edward Stoliday (1900-1975) and Frederick William Stoliday (1910-1975). George Snr died on 27 March 1939 and was buried at Dovercourt, Essex, on the 30th. Mary died on 20 March 1940 and was buried at Dovercourt three days later.

Sources: BMDs and census info at Ancestry.co.uk and Findmypast.co.uk, where I also accessed the British Newspaper Archive. Birth records at gro.gov.uk. Records at Norfolk Family History Society. Parish church visits. Naval records at the National Archives.