Ernest came to Rushden in the 1880s, and was apprenticed to a Rushden butcher in High Street. In 1898 he married Sarah (nee Chettle) daughter of Edwin and Eliza who lived at 40 Duck Street, where they had a fruiterer's business. In 1899 Ernest was trading as a master butcher at 27 Church Street, and they had a son John Frederick in 1899, a daughter Evelyn Maud in 1901 and another son, Robert William in 1905. In 1906 they had moved to Duck Street and as well as the butchery, here he also ran a bakery. The family home was between the butchery and bakery.

Edwin Chettle had died in 1889 and his wife Eliza died in 1918, and they are buried in Rushden cemetery, grave E.523.

In 1919 Ernest Hollis bought "two plots of land, a factory and five houses in Duck Street for £690, from H S Baker and W W James, with the consent of C L and Emily Bradfield".

In the 1920s the business was renamed Hollis Bros. when Ernest and Sarah's sons took over the running. Ernest was buried in Rushden cemetery, grave F.1207, on 3rd March 1948, and on 22nd November the same year, his wife Sarah was buried alongside him. Their son Frederick died in 1956, and Robert died in 1977.

Extract from memories of Duck Street: The shop was next to Hollis’ bake-house and on Sundays lots of men would stream down the roads with tins containing the meat & Yorkshire pudding, overlaid with a cloth. They would deposit the tin at the bake-house for cooking and go off to one of the pubs for an hour or so and then call and pick up the dinner to take home to their waiting family.

1937 Decorated for the Coronation

In 2023 the butchery is still titled "Hollis Bros."