Rushden Research Group: Hilda Holliday

Hilda Holliday

Hilda

Hilda was born in 1896, daughter of William, a shoemaker, and his wife Lily. William was born at Irchester, (son of Thomas) and he married Emma Lily Wilby (daughter of George) at St Mary's Church, Rushden, on the 11^th April 1887. William was 23 years old and Lily was 21. Their first daughter Laura was born in 1888, and she was joined by sister Sarah two years later. In 1892 a third daughter Emily was born at Northampton, where Lily had born, and two years later their first son George was born at Irchester. When Hilda was born the family were back in Rushden, two years later William was born, and in 1900 Edgar joined the family. They were living at 16 York Road. By 1911 they had added Elsie, Doris, Emma and baby Ella to the family, now with eleven children. They had moved to 10 Oswald Road, where they had six rooms. William was working as a shoe finisher, Laura was a domestic servant, and Emily, George and Hilda were all working in the shoetrade. Sarah had gone to work as a stillroom-maid for Samuel Whitbread, and she was one of 12 girls employed by him, and there were 3 male servants.

Birthday book given to Hilda by her mother to take on her adventure to New Zealand in 1922. Hilda started to write about her voyage....... Also, below are some hints written at the back of the book.

Left Eng. April 6 22. Went aboard about 1 o’clock, looked for our luggage & then had lunch, ate a good meal. We then went to our cabin, found other girls there, they were scotch & very broad at that, but however we had a lot of fun with Agnes & Mary. We got our chairs & sat for a few hours watching the land out of sight.

Whilst sitting there Jack came along & had a little chat, we then made afternoon tea & by this time land was well out of sight. Our last meal was at 5.30. I went down to tea but felt too crook to eat & as the night went on I felt worse. I sat on the seat outside surgery until about 9 o’clock, along came Bob the doctor’s boy & gave me such a nice jelly to eat, was so glad of it although it didn’t stay down very long. Matron came along & told us to get to bed, saying we would find boxes in the cabin if we felt sick. Sorry to say we needed the boxes before we reached the cabin, but having no idea what they would be like used the first box looking thing we set eyes on, finding out after that is was a locker. [this is all Hilda wrote of the journey in the book]

Sewing Hints - To scallop bottom by machine cut paper to width of garment & machine on paper.

Dry Clean - Roll garment in French chalk for a few days. Brush & shape well after.

A Pretty Trimming - Place net at edge of wrong side of garment, net being rather wide, sew through net and silk, cut away silk on right side & net on wrong side.

Jap. Silk - When washing silk put a little lump of starch or methylated spirit in rinsing water.

Packing - Use plenty of Tissue paper.

Her sister Sarah

Her niece Stella