James’s and Emma’s nine children were: Edward (born 1863 and died 1868), Emma (born 1864), Mary (1866), Agnes (1869), Thomas (1871), Elizabeth (1873), Catherine (1875), James (1877) and William (1880). Mary married William Ambler in 1893 and they had a son, William Noel.
By 1902, William Ambler had obtained employment on the estate of the Earl of Radnor in Folkestone, where he, Mary and young William (usually called Noel) were now living. The Earls of Radnor had their main estate at Longford Castle in Wiltshire (no connection to James’s place of birth in Ireland), but they also held the title Viscount Folkestone, where they had an extensive landholding. During the 19th century, with the coming of the railway, they undertook to create a well-heeled resort, starting at West Cliff and extending along the Leas as far as Sandgate. It would have been associated with this development that William was employed. In October 1902, Mary gave birth to a daughter, Mary, who died within a few days and was buried at the Cheriton Road Cemetery.
On 27th August 1904, William Donelan married Susannah Hargreaves, with whom he had boarded at Thomas’s house in Hammersmith along with her older sister, Mary Ann. The wedding took place at St Agatha’s church in Kingston, where Lily was a teacher; the witnesses were William’s siblings Mary and James. In the photograph, William is standing behind Susannah. It would be pleasing to identify the other members of both families. Mary Anne and Susannah’s parents had been John Hargreaves and Susannah Buckley, who were both born in Ireland, had migrated to Liverpool and married there in 1866. John became a policeman and the family lived in Everton, Mary being the oldest and Susannah the second youngest of six children, one of whom had died in infancy. John and Susannah both died, only in their 40s, in the year 1889. In 1891, Mary Anne, by then already a teacher, had become head of the household and her younger siblings lived with her in Walton-on-the-Hill in Liverpool. Susannah was only 9 at the time (the same age as William when his mother died). According to my aunt, the engagement and marriage of Susannah to William were not approved of by her older sister and she had been found a place as a governess in France to keep them apart. Whatever the truth in this story, William and Susannah found a way to be together.
Later in 1904, Thomas married Blanche Evelyn Sewell. Blanche was born on Old Kent Road in 1877, to Harriet and Thomas Sewell. Her father had died in 1895 and Harriet remarried, to John Coles. Blanche was living with Harriet and John on Elspeth Road in Battersea in 1901.
Presumably through his brother-in-law William Ambler, William Donelan obtained a position at the Earl of Radnor’s Folkestone estate as a clerk, and he and Susannah moved to Rose Cottage in Sandgate, near Folkestone. There, on 31st May 1905, their first child, Sydney Lawrence, was born. The following year, on 17th September, a second son, James Francis, came into the family.
Just a week or so earlier on 6th September 1906, James’s namesake and uncle married Louisa Matilda Singleton, sometimes, though not by her family, known as Lola. She had been born in Poplar Place, Bayswater where her father John was a carman (delivery cart driver). They lived with her mother Margaret and two older brothers. In 1892, Louisa was admitted to Netherwood Street School in Camden, the family living then at Priory Park Road. By 1901, they were in Saltram Crescent, not far from Hampstead, and Lola was a dressmaker. It seems likely that she had been one of the performers in William’s concert at St Mary’s Church, Hampstead in 1900, though she herself was not a Catholic. The wedding was recorded as taking place in the Brentford registration district. By the 1911 census, the family was living in a semi-detached house at Ludlow Road in Ealing, which is within the Brentford district so, in all likelihood, they had been in Ealing by 1906.
The following spring, on 22nd June, Lily (Elizabeth) married Charles Arthur Wall. Charles had been born in Honley (near Huddersfield), Yorkshire to Charles and Emily Wall. In 1901, aged 22, he was residing at the Schoolhouse at Long Ditton School, where he was a teacher. Long Ditton is just 4 miles south of Kingston, where Lily was also a teacher at that time. Their wedding was written up in the Surrey Advertiser (26th June 1907) under the headline “Pretty Wedding at St Agatha’s”. Lily was ‘given away’ by Thomas; James and William acted as groomsmen and the best man was Robert Wilson, also a schoolteacher.
The families continued to grow: Thomas and Blanche had sons John Valentine (1906) and Denis Ambler (1908), the latter’s middle name presumably in recognition of the surname of Thomas’s sister Mary and brother-in-law William. James and Lola had three daughters, Marjorie (or Margery) Ernesta, in 1907, Agnes Joan (also known as Joan Agnes) in 1909, and Betty Lola in 1911. William and Susannah added a daughter, Kathleen Mary Agnes, in 1909 and my father, Gerald Anthony on 11th February 1911 to their family. Lily and Charles had a son, Patrick (formally Arthur Patrick Donelan Wall) in June 1910.
At the time of the 1911 census there is no record of either Emma or Agnes. Mary and William (occupation Estate Agent’s Clerk) are living at 41 Castle Hill Avenue in the centre of Folkestone. Their son, William Noel, is staying with Thomas and Blanche, who live at 32 Fanthorpe St, Putney. Thomas is a commercial clerk in the flour industry. Also living with them is sister Kate, working as a confectionery shop assistant. Lily and Charles are living in a pleasant semi-detached house in Staunton Road, Kingston-on-Thames. Both are still teaching. However, the census indicates that they had had a child who had died – Patrick, only 7 months old apparently died of “dyspepsia and convulsions related to teething”, though now this might have been recorded as a sudden unexplained death. James and Lola are living on Ludlow Road, Ealing, where James is a buyer to wine and spirits merchants. Finally, William, Susannah and their four children – Gerald just one month old – are still at Rose Cottage, Sandgate, William a clerk in Lord Radnor’s Folkestone estate office.
The next three years witnessed both joy and sadness. Lily and Charles moved to Merstham in Surrey where they had positions as teachers at the elementary school. In early 1912, their daughter Barbara Mary was born. In early summer, Thomas and Blanche had another son, Terence Basil, but he died the following year, soon after his first birthday. James and Lola also had more children: James Arthur Francis (known as Jimmy) in June 1912 and then, just as the Great War started, another daughter, Peggy, was born. On 1st November 1913, Kate married Robert William Wilson, who had been her brother-in-law Charles’s best man, at the Roman Catholic church in Richmond, Surrey. Robert hailed from Withycombe in Devon, his parents having been William Loveday (a common west country name) and Sarah Wilson.
As the year 1914 arrived, James’s and Emma’s eight surviving children, five now married, must have been optimistic for themselves and their young families. The impact of World War I over the next four years would test that to the extreme.
Part 1 – Childhood
Part 2 – Into Work
Part 4 – The Great War
Part 5 – Later Years
Further info:
- Netherwood Street School: https://kilburnandwillesdenhistory.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-history-of-netherwood-street-kilburn.html
- Development of the Earl of Radnor’s Folkestone estate https://www.folkestone-hythe.gov.uk/downloads/file/1450/eb-11-13a-folkestone-sandgate-as-seaside-resorts
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