THE HOLLOW LOGhollow.one-name.net/news46.pdf · 2015. 7. 24. · Page 9 The Hollow name - Update My theory of the origin of the Name Hollow resulted in good and bad news. Hollow experts

The Hollow Log, Issue 46 Page 1

INS I DE TH I S IS S U E

Hollow Spotting I am always looking for any reference to a Hollow, birth death or marriage or any other mention in the media. Unfortunately the custom of announcing of births, marriages is declining so we find few of them.

Page 2

St Ives to South Australia This story came with images from

Graham Witt and David Quinn,

who I thank sincerely, but when I

was putting it together it was

hijacked by a Murray River Paddle

Steamer. When you get close to the

end of the story you will

understand what I am talking

about.

Page 4

The PS Decoy The connection with the Hollow

family is only short but this ship

had a great history.

Page 8

Correcting the record This is a correction to a story in Hollow Log 41. It is probably the longest correction you will ever see but hopefully this family story is more complete now.

Page 9

The Hollow name - Update My theory of the origin of the

Name Hollow resulted in good and

bad news. Hollow experts agree it

derived from Holla. What is not

agreed is where the name Holla

came from.

Page 12

THE HOLLOW LOG Issue 46, June 2015 The Hollow Family Researchers’ Newsletter ISSN 1445-8772

Vale Robert

Hollow,

Towednack

farmer Robert was featured in the last Issue of

The Hollow Log when he and his

family were visited by their distant

relative another Robert Hollow. Sadly

Robert passed away in May. Here is a

young farmer Robert with one of his

farm dogs. Robert and his twin brother

Gus spent lived at Amalveor farm at

Towednack from 1928, they were one

year old.After going to school at Nan

Cledra they worked on the farm for their father and eventually took over running the farm

themselves. The photo was part of an short piece Robert’s grandson Chris wrote about

him. Chris’s piece and other photos are on page 3.

St Ives to South Australia This story traces the journey to Australia by a brother and sister who made their way to

South Australia via Queensland. The two young men below are two of the first Australian

born members of that family, William John Hollow on the left and Robert Archie Hollow

on the right. I have say the photo shows a quickly learned Aussie nonchalence. They are

dressed in their best suits but relaxed in the moment. Their family’s story is on page 4.


Hollow Spotting High distinction icing on cake for Emily

Emmanuel Catholic

College’s Emily

Hollow, Dux of the

school in 2014, was

the best performing

student with the

WACE examinations.

She achieved an

ATAR of 96.5

placing her in the top

3.5% of the state. She

was awarded a

Certificate of

Distinction for

Design for being in

the top 0.5 per cent

of students in the

subject.

Emily said she was overwhelmed after claiming the award.

“Many see design as an easy subject when compared to

chemistry and maths, but having studied all three, I know that

this really isn’t the case,” she said.

“While you do not have to remember difficult formulas and

work out equations, it is extremely time consuming and

challenging trying to come up with new and innovative ideas

that look original and stand out from all of the other student’s

designs.

Emily is also a recipient of an Excellence Scholarship from

Curtin University and hopes to study laboratory medicine at

Curtin University next year, while her long term goal is to

become an emergency physician.

13/Jan/2015 from the Cockburn Gazette and the Emmanuel

Catholic College Newsletter.

Obituaries

HOLLOW, James Frederick Clement. "Jimmy “Passed away

peacefully on September 15, 2013 Aged 62 years son of Allan

(deceased) and Hazel, brother and brother-in-law of John and

Annette, Kim and Maeve, Mark, Peter and Karen, Anne and

David, Robert and Lucy.

Published in The Adelaide Advertiser on 18/09/2013

HOLLOW. Lance (Rocky). Late of Irymple and Mildura,

passed away at Mildura Base Hospital on Nov. 12, 2014, aged

77 years. Husband of Judy, father and father-in-law of Janet

and Wayne, Lance and Katrina. Adored Poppy Rock of

Cassandra, Jack, Georgia and Jenna. Mate of Thomas. Brother

and brother-in-law of Pearl and Dennis. Uncle of John, Garry,

Wendy and families.

Published in Melbourne Herald Sun on 14/11/2014

HOLLOW Lavorna Pearl On 22nd

December 2014 passed away at

Royal Cornwall Hospital Truro

Lavorna aged 94 years of Cardinnis

Road Alverton Penzance. Wife of

George (deceased), mother of

Geoff and Keith (deceased) Susan

and Andra, grandmother and great

grandmother. Funeral service at St

Johns Church Penzance on Friday

9th January 2015.

Originally printed on January 8, 2015 in the Cornwall and Devon

Media.

HOLLOW (nee Maclachlan) Margaret Florence Sep. 6, 1926 -

Jan.1, 2015 wife of Donald (dec. ). Mother and mother-in-law

to John and Carol, Ian and Wendy and Geoff and Julie.

Grandmother of Lara, Tom, Nathan and Amy.

Published in Melbourne Herald Sun on 05/01/2015

HOLLOW On Friday 24th April 2015 peacefully at The Royal

Cornwall Hospital Treliske, Patricia Mary (Pat) aged 94 years

of Nancledra. Wife of the late Norman Hollow. Funeral

Service on Monday 11th May at Treswithian Downs

Crematorium.

Originally printed on May 7, 2015 in the Cornwall and Devon Media.

HOLLOW Robert Berryman Peacefully at his home, Newgate

Bungalow, Trink, formerly of Amalveor Farm, Towednack on

Wednesday 6th May 2015 following a short illness, aged 87

years. Husband of the late Doris Ann, father of Elizabeth,

Charlotte and Emma, father-in-law to Robert, Roy and David,

grandfather to Christopher, Simon, James, Louis, Dominic and

step grandfather to Ian and a much loved great-grandfather.

Brother of the late Wilfred John and twin brother of Augustus

James. Funeral service at Towednack Parish Church on

Saturday 16th

May 2015,

followed by

interment in

Towednack

Cemetery.

Originally printed

on May 14, 2015

in the Cornwall

and Devon Media.

♣


This piece about Robert Hollow by his grandson, Chris Knowles from a magazine in

Cornwall. Chris works Trink farm where Robert lived with his family up until his

death.

News from Trink Farm Life on the farm is very

busy at the moment. The

cows are being artificially

inseminated each day as

they come into season. My

brother, Simon, has hired a digger and is here putting

in some new cow tracks.

We are also busy making

silage when the weather

and the contractor allows.

There is, however, a tinge

of sadness in the air as my

Grandfather, Robert

Hollow, passed away on

May 6th. He farmed in the midst of our community at Amalveor Farm all his

working life. He was a farmer through and through and I feel he was much more in tune with the soil and the seasons than I need to be – no weather app on your mobile

for him!

He worked the soil with

horses initially until

tractors came along in the

fifties. The equipment

used back then was very

basic which required a far

greater level of skill than

the sophisticated machines

of today. I often envy the

carefree farming lifestyle that he would have

enjoyed, especially the

lack of paperwork and form filling.

The farming community was the dominant group in the area and there was a high

level of helping your neighbour and the sense of fellowship was much stronger.

This was especially true at thrashing time when a dozen local farmers would come

together to share the workload.

Together with his twin brother Gus they milked up to 30 Guernsey cows. He found

it hard to comprehend that I milk 300 cows but I think I would find it difficult to

imagine my grandson (or granddaughter) milking 3,000 cows!

Chris Knowles

Thanks for this piece to

Robert’s daughter, Charlotte

Murt and Robert Hollow, fifth

cousin from Australia..

Hello There

I apologise for the lateness of this issue. My production technique is not an exact science and prone to all sorts of delays and distractions.

In the end I think this issue shows the diversity of Hollow family history and the need to be cautious in interpreting evidence. The stories I present are the best explanation of events at the time of writing. Things may change as new information is found. All stories should

be seen in this light.

Borrowed Odd Spot – from

The Age, Melbourne.

The Hollow Family Website

The website is updated on a monthly basis now. In the Hollow Log, details of families are often quite brief. You can use the Hollow Database section on the website to get further details of individuals and families. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.an

cestry.com/~chollow/

Contact

Colin Hollow edits the Hollow Log,

comments and contributions are always

welcome.

Write to 2 Keeley Lane, Princes Hill,

3054, Victoria, Australia. e-mail:

[email protected]

Hollow and variants Holla, Hollah,

Hallo and Hallow are registered with

The Guild of One-Name Studies. The

Guild member is Colin Hollow

(Member No. 3056).

©No material in this newsletter should

be produced without permission.

Robert and Ann Hollow

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chollow/http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chollow/mailto:[email protected]


St Ives to South Australia This is another family story of migration from Cornwall to

Australia in search of a new life. This story involves two

siblings from a large St Ives Hollow family. William Robert

Hollow (1836-1902) himself from a family of eleven also

fathered eleven children. His eldest two children both finished

up living in the same small township of Woodside in the

Adelaide Hills of South Australia. Unusually their journey to

Woodside was via Queensland a large northern state of

Australia.

The siblings, Catherine Hollow (1856-1896) and William

Hollow (1858 – 1893), must have been looking for ways to

escape Cornwall and probably really wanted to go to South

Australia. They had an uncle working in the mines of Moonta,

South Australia and South Australia was a rich mining state.

Catherine had married a miner William Norman Ellis in 1876

and they had two children before leaving St Ives for

Queensland in 1883. However Catherine’s brother William

was the first to leave St Ives for Queensland so I take up his

story first.

William

Hollow (1858

– 1893) was

born 2

February 1858;

he was the

second child in

a family of

eleven. He was

living with his

family in the

street of

Stennack in St

Ives at the

1871 census

but then leaves

St Ives and his

next appearance in the records is in Australia. He married in

1882 at Mt Barker, South Australia to Honorah Edmonds at

the De Sales Catholic Church. William is believed to have been

living at Woodside at the time and Hanora lived at Forest

Range which is 6 Kilometres from Woodside. Mt Barker was

possibly the closest town with a Catholic church.

William is not following the normal Hollow pattern. Mt Barker

and Woodside in the Adelaide hills are not places where the

Hollows had been found previously and Catholicism was not

the usual Hollow calling although that has changed over the

years.

William’s journey to Australia was different too. The only

record I have found that fits him is a passage to Townsville in

Queensland in July 1879 as a “Free” passenger.

To help people who do not know Australian geography

Townsville and Rockhampton are in far North Queensland.

Aussies refer to it as FNQ and it is some 1800 kms as the

crow flies from Adelaide, and more relevantly, some 3200 kms

by ship. FNQ is deep in the tropics so the conditions are

somewhat different to the temperate Cornish clime.

Australian governments, each state had its own legislature,

were often offering incentives for the British people to come

to Australia. It seems that in the late 1870s and early 1880s

Queensland was offering very attractive incentives.

Two such incentives were Free passages and Bounty passages.

Free passages were granted by the Government to particular

categories of immigrants, and their families, which were from

time to time particularly required in Queensland. Applicants

were required to pay the sum of £1. To be eligible, they had to

be unable to pay their own passage, they could not have

resided previously in any Australian colony, and they must

intend to

reside

permanently

in

Queensland.

Bounty

immigrants

were

individuals

or families

who wanted

to come to

Australia.

Ships were

chartered by

an agent in

the UK.

People applied to the agent to be included to fill up ship.

Alternatively Individuals or small groups could be sponsored

by people in Australia, these sponsors received subsidies.

On arrival in Australia the immigrants were interviewed by

Immigration Board. If they were deemed suitable a bounty of

a set amount was paid to the Agent. No payment was made

for people deemed unfit, too old or who died on voyage.

Immigrants had to be “suitable” young, healthy & useful in

work experience. The immigrants had to satisfy the

occupational criteria. They needed testimonials (references)

and there was also a limit to number of children they could

bring.


William as a single man took a Free passage and arrived in

Townsville FNQ on the Scottish Knight on the 22nd July 1879.

In November 1879 a William Hollow travelled from Brisbane,

Qld. to Sydney NSW. So his stay in Queensland may not have

been long. Perhaps the climate got to William, Aussies joke

about going troppo (mad) in FNQ or

perhaps William’s goal was always

South Australia.

William had his uncle in South

Australia in the mining area of

Moonta but miners were starting to

leave that area. Around that time

Woodside was experiencing

something of a gold rush. Early

excited reports suggested it may have

been South Australia’s Ballarat or

Bendigo. There was a lot of gold

mining activity through the Adelaide

Hills with gold being found at Forest

Range, Glen Osmond and Jupiter’s

Creek near Echunga. There were

newspaper reports of large nuggets

being found at Forest Range around

1882, one weighting 12 ounces and

another 4 ounces. These reports may

have attracted William’s attention.

Somehow William began working in

the Woodside area and William and

Hanorah Edmonds who lived at Forest

Range met. Woodside was only 6

kilometres from Forest Range and it was a

larger town where supplies would have

been purchased from.

William and Hanorah, lived the early part

of their married lives in and around

Woodside in the Adelaide Hills as their

first child, William John was born at Glen

Osmond, which is closer to Adelaide, on

30th

December 1883. William may have

worked in the Mines there but for a short

time as around 17 months later on 18th

September 1885 their second child Jane

was born at Woodside. There is evidence

that William was a miner there. He appears

in the court records in 1886 trying to get

payment for money he was owed as a

miner. Court reports in 1888 show an

unhappier story when William is to come

before the Insolvency court. This also

coincided with the death of the couple’s third child, Elizabeth

Norah at just thirteen months old. The outcome of the

insolvency action is not reported but William does move to

another mining area, Broken Hill, in New South Wales, very

soon after this time. Broken Hill was where William’s uncle

from Moonta now worked and where there was a mining

boom.

In 1888 a stock market boom makes

Argent Street in Broken Hill the

equivalent of Wall Street in the US

and the BHP share price hits an

incredible 400 pounds. But like all

booms, an equally massive bust

follows just a few years later.

William and Hanorah had another

child, Robert Archie, in Broken Hill in

1891 but by 1893 they were back

South Australia for the birth of their

fifth child, Edith Sandow, in August

1893. Edith was born at Happy Valley

a town south of Woodside. William

was working on the construction of

the new Happy Valley Reservoir being

built in the southern vales area of

Adelaide. William had a responsible

job heading a gang of men working on

the project.

This project included the construction

of water pipeline tunnels under the Mt Lofty

Ranges from the Onkaparinga River at

Clarendon and it came out at the other side at

Happy Valley. His mining skills would have

been needed for this work. This tunnel was 3

metres in diameter and 5 kilometres in length,

quite a big and important project for the time.

This last child was never to know her father as

tragedy hits the family on the 18th November

1893. The newspaper report in the box has the

details.

The family presumption is that Hanorah

moved back to Forest Range with her parents.

In 1899 she was to marry again to George

Knott, a man from the adjacent town Basket

Range. The marriage was at the Adelaide

Registry Office on 9th September 1899 ie

9/9/99. Nowadays couples actively seek out

dates like that to be married. George and

Hanorah lived at Basket Range until 1917 and

had three children together. They moved to a

small holding, 17.5 acres at Athelstone and

lived out the rest of her life there. She died there in 1930.

A sad fatality occurred at the Happy Valley

waterworks early on Saturday morning by

which William Hollow, a chief of a gang of

men, met his death. Just as the night shift

were leaving work at half-past 6 o'clock on

Saturday morning Hollow made a final

inspection of the work in one of the tunnels.

He was examining a timber which appeared

to be somewhat irregular when the whole

affair gave way. It struck him on the side of

the head, and the falling sand covered both him and his assistant. The latter was not so

heavily buried, and managed to extricate

himself. He called to the trucker to get help,

and when the unfortunate man was unearthed

he was found to be dead. The resident

engineer (Mr. G. S. Mann) and Dr. Horneck

were sent for, and the doctor on arrival ex-

pressed the opinion that Hollow had suffered

no pain whatever —the blow from the timber

having rendered him unconscious. He leaves

a wife and four children, the youngest being only a few weeks old. His widow will draw

about £100 from the accident fund.

The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA) 20 Nov. 1893

Hanorah Hollow/Knott nee Edmonds


Catherine Hollow (1856 – 1896)

William may have been the forward party for his sister

Catherine’s move from St Ives to Queensland, although he did

not stay, Catherine left Cornwall a year after William married

in South Australia. Catherine married a William Ellis in 1876

and they made the voyage to Queensland as Bounty

Immigrants in 1883. They arrived in Rockhampton on 29th

January 1884 the ship Scottish Hero. Once again they did not

stay. The climate may have been a factor; although

Rockhampton is further south than Townsville it is on the

Tropic of Capricorn and thus well and truly tropical. The Ellis

family moved to Woodside in the Adelaide hills at least by

1889 when their sixth child was born. Three more children

followed. Catherine was from a family of nine girls and two

boys. She attempted to balance the family by giving birth to

nine boys.

Catherine and William Ellis were to lose another son early in

his life, their first born, Robert, died in 1895 aged eighteen.

Catherine herself was to pass away the next year a couple of

months short of her fortieth birthday.

The next Generation

William and Hanorah Hollow had four children, the oldest was

William John Hollow (1883-1951). William married Teresa

Stella Eglington in 1908 at Swan Reach on the Murray River.

The Eglington’s were from Forest Range so the relationship

may have started there.

Land was being made available in the area known as the

Murray Mallee and William and Teresa took up farming at

Mindarie although he also worked as a stock agent. Their

house is listed for sale by Tender by the State Bank of SA in

May 1948. It is described as a 4 roomed stone and concrete


residence. Newspaper reports from June 1916 have Bill being

part of the Mindarie Rifle Club. Bill was an active participant

in the local community and there are newspaper articles where

he was the founding secretary of the Mindarie School in 1929

and was regularly MC for functions held in the local Hall.

They had four children Rose, Olive, William and James. The

girls both married teachers in the area the boys both married

in Adelaide in 1843 and 1945. William was in the army during

the war and lived for some time at least on the Paddle Steamer

Decoy which had been converted to a houseboat. After the

death of her husband in 1951 Teresa Hollow lived on said

boat with her son William and family until heavy floods in

1956. There has to be a story in that…more research?.

I found the photo opposite of the PS Decoy as a houseboat as

it would have been when William Hollow and his family lived

on it. The story of the PS Decoy sparked my interest so I have

described its life before it became a Hollow house at the end

of the Hollow story.

Jane Hollow (1885-1964) married Basket Range local, William

Thomas Raymond (Bill). This was keeping it in the family so

to speak as Bills mother was Mary Susannah Knott the sister

of Hanorah Edmonds Hollow’s husband. This meant that Bill,

who was George James Knott’s nephew, married George’s

step daughter. Jane and Bill married in George and Hanorah

Knott’s house at Basket Range on 3rd March 1909.

Jane and Bill stayed in the Basket Range area all their lives.

She worked as a midwife and

delivered many babies all over

the immediate area and was a

very popular lady, known by

many. Whenever there was a

need for medical assistance in

the local area, Jane was the

person they called for.

Jane died relatively young at

the age of 68 In the Uraidla

Hospital on the 31st July 1954.

William went on to live

another 8 years and passed

away aged 77 on the 10th April

1962. They are buried together

at Norton Summit, near Basket range, Cemetery. The marriage

produced six children between 1910 and 1930.

Robert Archie Hollow (1891-1927) is pictured on the front

page. He worked a farm block at Basket Range with his

brother until he joined the AIF in 1916 and fought in France.

Robert was wounded and gassed late in the war. He was

repatriated because of his injuries and eventually resided in a

soldier’s home in Adelaide where he died from those injuries

in 1927. Robert was not married.

Edith Sandow Hollow (1893-1974) was a six week old baby

when her father died in November 1893. Edith was known for

her long Red hair.

She married Clifford Thomas Stewart at St Ignatius Church,

Norwood SA on 21st

June 1919.

Edie, as she was known

and Cliff had two

children, Clifford and

Charles whilst they were

married. They separated

sometime around the

second war and Edith

filed for divorce on the

grounds of desertion on

the 6th September 1951.

It was short lived and

Edie and Cliff got back together and stayed this way for the

rest of their lives.

Edith passed away at Basket Range in 1974 at the age of 81

and is buried at Norton Summit Cemetery. Clifford died on

the 11 August 1970 aged 80. Members of Edie's family are still

living in the area (2014).

Catherine Ellis nee Hollow lost three of her nine boys before

adulthood. Her eldest son Robert died at eighteen. Unlike the

Hollows most of the Ellis boys moved out of the Adelaide

hills to the Copper triangle of Kapunda, Moonta and Kadina

north of Adelaide where presumably they worked in the mines

there. Research on this family has been limited. ♣

I am indebted to Graham Witt for most of the family detail

which I have taken from a longer family history he has put

together for his extended family of which the Hollows were a

small part.

The PS

Decoy as a

house c2011

Jane Raymond nee Hollow

Edith Sandow Stewart nee Hollow


The PS Decoy The PS in the ship’s title stands for Paddle Steamer. Paddle

steamers were the means farmers and graziers along the River

Murray were able to get their produce to markets. They also

carried lumber from the extensive Red Gum forests along the

river. In their heyday hundreds of steamers worked on the

Murray. Their demise came with the growth of the railway

systems in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

The PS Decoy was built in Scotland by a Glasgow company in

1878, shipped to Melbourne in pieces where it was

reconstructed. The PS Decoy was then sailed 456 nautical

miles from Port Phillip Bay to the Murray River mouth at

Goolwa where she arrived in 1879. It was a tow boat and

worked on the Murray towing barges carrying wheat, timber,

wool, sheep, and produce mostly in the lower end of the

Murray between Renmark and Goolwa and then sea voyages

to Port Adelaide. In 1881 she was lengthened by a further 23

feet and her hull sheathed externally with hardwood to resist

the abrasiveness of the silt laden water. Between 1902 and

1905 she was employed about the South Australian gulf ports

towing wheat barges. In 1905 she was bought by a Perth

entrepreneur to become a day cruise ship on the Swan River.

The trip to Fremantle, the Perth port is 1470 nautical miles. A

Second deck was added. This venture faltered and in 1909 she

was towed back across the Australian Bight to Goolwa where

she did cruises but eventually the second deck was taken off

and she reverted to working as a tow boat. In the early 1930s

she was converted to a houseboat and moored near Renmark.

It was here that William Hollow owned her in the 1950s. In

1984 she was towed to Mannum and has remained there as a

house rather than a houseboat. She is there today.

The accompanying map shows the enormity of the trip from

Goolwa (A) and Fremantle (B). Going over under its own

steam and but being towed back, an even greater and more

dangerous feat.

In 1986 another Perth entrepreneur had a replica of the Decoy

built for tourist cruise on the Swan. This venture also faltered

but a new owner is restoring the ship for a

new life the exact nature of which is not

clear. Sorry about the diversion from the

Hollow story but Murray steamboats will

do that to a family historian. ♣

Boat images from State Library of South

Australia Murray River Collection

Historical info from Paddle Boat News at

http://www.slimpage.com.au/pbn/

Map by Google.

The PS Decoy

circa 1880

The PS

Decoy in

Perth 1905-

1909

The PS Decoy back in

Goolwa c1910

The PS

Decoy

stripped

back as a

work boat

http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/http://www.slimpage.com.au/pbn/


Correcting the Record In Hollow Log 41 I headed a story “Records do not tell all of

the story”. I should have added – “But do not dismiss them

lightly”. In the story I described the family of Edwin Davies

Hollow and Mary Hollow nee Collins. They were credited with

eleven children, the last two of whom had the name Clow

included in their birth registration. I made a couple of

assumptions that I now know were incorrect. Firstly I

Suggested the Hollow family may have adopted or fostered the

last two boys. I also intimated there may have been a family

connection between the Hollow family and the suggested

family of the two boys.

Francis Charles Clow Hollow was born in 1889 and his birth

registration has Edwin Davies Hollow as his father and Mary

Collins as his mother. His birth was registered at Prahran,

Victoria. Prahran is an inner Melbourne suburb. The next

child Hector Harry Clow Hollow was born in 1894 and his

birth registered at Bairnsdale in country Victoria some 200

kilometers from Melbourne. There are actually two birth

registration entries for him in the published birth indexes.

Clow, Hector Harry, father Joseph Charles, mother Mary Hollow Re.

No. 8507R

Hollow, Hector Harry, father unknown, mother Mary Hollow Reg. No.

8507R

The R in the registration number in Victoria indicates that the

record has been adjusted in some way. My original article

included the interpretation of these anomalies as the Hollows

fostering Francis and Hector Clow, perhaps due to a family

connection. Joseph Charles Clow in the 1870s had fathered

two children in Victoria to an Ellen Watson. Watson was also

a name Mary Hollow had given to more than one of her

children, actually the surname of her grandmother.

The Clow Family

After having been contacted by descendants of the Clow

family, and investigating other records I have to change my

original interpretation.

The name Jane Watson appeared in both sides of these

families and I thought there was a possibility of a family

connection. Ellen Watson the second spouse of Joseph

Charles Clow was the daughter of a Jane Watson. With a lot of

help from another researcher with an interest in the Clow side

of things we have a lot more information on Ellen Watson.

From a variety of sources I can say she was born in Buckland,

Berkshire, England, and her mother Jane was also born, c1815,

in Buckland and died in 1834 in Buckland. Her daughter Ellen

was living with her grandparents Peter and Sarah Watson, in

1841 and 1851 so was presumably raised by them. Ellen

Watson married an Edmund Cavey in Buckland in 1853 then

with two children migrated

with her husband to

Australia in 1855. They

landed in Melbourne as

assisted passengers and

were committed to work

for a Henry Nickless who

owned a hotel at Little

River a small town between

Melbourne and Geelong.

Ellen had seven more

children to Edmund Cavey

and the family lived in or

around Geelong. Then the

marriage must have broken

down as in 1874 and 1877

she had children to Joseph

Charles Clow at Rheola, a

mining town near Bendigo,

some 100 miles north of

Geelong. This relationship

also breaks down and in the

1890s we have found them

living separately in the

inner suburbs of

Melbourne. There is little

chance that she was the

mother of the Clow Hollow

children born in 1889 and

1894.

So Jane Watson the mother

of Ellen was a Berkshire

girl. The other Jane

Watson, the mother of

Mary Hollow nee Collins

was born in Renfrew,

Scotland. She was about the

same age as Berkshire Jane

but there is no connection

and so no family reason

why the Hollows might

adopt or foster two boys.

The Hollow Family

Through directories, local

newspapers and Victorian

prison records a picture

emerges of this Hollow

family living under very

trying conditions.

Timeline (Directory entries in

purple) 1873 Mary Collins marries Edwin Davies Hollow 6 Mar.

1874 Edwin D Hollow Kay St. Carlton. 26 Jan. appointed a customs Officer Howlong Florence Evaline Hollow born

1875 no entry Albert Edwin Watson Hollow born, Florence dies

1876 Edwin D Hollow Kay St. Carlton Robert James Watson Hollow born 1877 Edwin D Hollow Kay St. Carlton

1878 Edwin D Hollow 62 Moray Pl. Emerald Hill appointed a weigher customs Isabella Emily Hollow born

1879 Edwin D Hollow 95 Raglan St. Emerald Hill Elizabeth Ethel Hollow born

1880 Edwin D Hollow 78 Raglan St. Emerald Hill Arthur Oscar Hollow born Edwin in court 1881 Edwin D Hollow 78 Raglan St. Emerald Hill

1882 Mary Hollow 43 Cowie St. South Melbourne. Elsie May Hollow born

1883 Mary Hollow 43 Cowie St. South Melbourne. William Watson Hollow born


Edwin Hollow and Mary Collins married in 1873. In 1874

Edwin was appointed as a customs officer at Howlong on the

Victorian New South Wales border some 150 kilometers from

Melbourne. He may not have taken up this post as Melbourne

Directories have him living in Carlton (inner Melbourne) from

1874-1877. Then in he lived at Emerald Hill (South

Melbourne) from 1878 to 1881.

In 1880 Edwin was before the courts for an unpaid bill and

leaving his children without support. The Hollows had had

five children at this stage. Perhaps he did work at Howlong

and came home when he could, if the tenancy of the houses

was in his name it could explain the directory entries. In 1882,

83 it is Mary Hollow who is recorded in the directories living

in South Melbourne. In 1884 Edwin is recorded living in

South Yarra (close by to South Melbourne). Another child was

born to Mary in 1883 and another in 1885, her ninth child and

last to Edwin it seems. In 1885 and 1886 the directories just

have the house in South Melbourne with the family name

Hollow. Edwin is the occupier of the house in 1887.

In June 1888 Edwin is again before the court for not paying

Child support. The court report includes the information that

the couple had separated for some time then they came back

together but this did not last and they were separate again.

This court appearance resulted in Edwin being ordered to pay

Mary £1 12s. 6d per week. This arrangement must have

broken down as on October 10th that year Edwin was jailed

owing £9 3s. 4d.

Over the next three years he is in jail on four separate

occasions each time for non payment of support.

10/10/88 to 7/12/88 6/10/90 to 5/2/91 25/2/91 to 18/4/91 17/10/91 to 15/2/92

Francis Charles Clow Hollow was born in early 1889 so it

would seem that Mary Hollow was in a relationship with

Joseph Charles Clow at during 1888 and it may have triggered

Edwin’s reluctance to support his children. Mary’s relationship

with Joseph Clow must have lasted to at least 1894 when

Hector Harry Clow was born. The relationship may have been

in difficulties as a newspaper report shows that the Clow

family received support in Bairnsdale in 1894 from the

Bairnsdale Ladies Benevolent Society. Mary Hollow returned

to Melbourne, Joseph Charles Clow is listed as living in

Prahran in 1897 and the Mary Hollow is listed in the 1898 and

1899 directories living in Elsternwick, the relationship with

Clow seems to have ended.

Joseph Charles Clow

Joseph Charles Clow led an intriguing life. He was born in

1845 in Surrey The son of a spirits agent, a proprietor of

houses, a distiller’s commercial traveller and eventually a

distiller himself. In 1868 aged

23 Joseph Charles Clow

married Caroline Graves a

widow aged 37. Caroline was

the mistress of the famous

author Wilkie Collins and it

seems the marriage was an

attempt on Caroline’s part to

punish Wilkie Collins for

taking on another mistress.

The ploy worked to a degree,

Caroline returned to Wilkie’s

household but Wilkie retained

his new mistress too in

another house. Joseph Charles

did not hang around, in late

1869 he set out for Australia

arriving in Melbourne in

January 1870 aboard the ship

Melmerby. He next appears in

the Victorian records when he

had a daughter to one Ellen

Watson at Berlin (Rheola) on

the Victorian goldfields on

14th May 1874. He married

Ellen, according to the child’s

birth certificate, on the

29/10/1868 at the parish

church at Marylebone

London. This happens to be

Joseph’s marriage date,

according to British records,

but his wife was Caroline

Graves not Ellen Watson. No

marriage has been found for

Joseph and Ellen.

Joseph and Ellen had another

daughter in 1877. Ellen was

known as Ellen Clow. I am

not sure how long this family

stayed together but in 1889 of

course Joseph fathered a child

as we have established to

Mary Hollow. Ellen Clow at

some point moves to

Melbourne. In 1893 a

newspaper report tells of the

death of a 4 month old child

of her daughter Queenie

while being looked after by

Ellen in North Melbourne.

Joseph Clow is reported that

1884 Edwin D. Hollow, 8 Portland Pl. South Yarra William Watson Hollow died

1885 Hollow __, 43 Cowie St. South Melbourne Jennie Watson Hollow born

1886 Hollow __, 43 Cowie St. South Melbourne

1887 Hollow Edwin D, Cowie St. South Melbourne appointed a weigher

1888 Hollow Edwin D, Cowie St. South Melbourne 16 June Edwin in court. Jailed wife desertion, 10/10/88 to 7/12/88

1889 No entry 4 Jan. Edwin resigns as a weigher Francis Charles Clow Hollow born

1890 No entry Oct. 90 jailed for not complying with court order.

1891 No entry Jailed Feb.91 Jailed Oct. 91 1892 No entry 1893 No entry for Edwin or Mary Hollow Joseph C Clow Essendon

1894 No entry Hector Harry Clow Hollow born at Bairnsdale.

1895 No entry 1896 Joseph C Clow livng in South Yarra in 1896 1897 Joseph


same year as living in Essendon. Later directories show Joseph

and Ellen continued to live apart. About 1893/94 Joseph must

have been with Mary Hollow in Bairnsdale where their second

son Hector was born in 1894. This relationship also

floundered and Joseph is next in the records marrying a

divorcee, Louisa Maguire in 1902 in Melbourne. Louisa had

four children and she and her children left Victoria for

England with Joseph Charles Clow and his first son to Mary

Hollow, Francis Charles Clow Hollow. Francis would have

been about thirteen.

The marriage of Joseph and Louisa Maguire also broke down.

In the British 1911 census they are living apart, Joseph is living

with his son, now 22 and recorded as Charles Francis Clow.

Charles was married in 1915 but was to die two years later.

Family Dynamics

Despite the fracturing of relationships the family bonds

remained strong. It is pretty clear that Edwin Hollow and

Mary remained apart although both remained close to their

children. Both are shown at times living with one of the

children or very close to them. There is a family grave in the

Melbourne General Cemetery (see Picuture) where both

Edwin and Mary are buried along with three of their children.

The death notices for both Edwin and Mary mention all of the

children who survived to adulthood, including the Clow boys

and there is no hint that is anything else but a large united

family. Note Charles Francis Clow is referred to as Francis in

Edwin’s notice and Charlie in his mother Mary’s notice.

Possibly the family did not realize that he had died in England

in 1917. His departure in

1903 with his father did not

lead to him being left out of

the listing. His brother

Hector Harry enlisted in the

Australian Army as Hector

Harry Hollow in WW1 and

saw action in France. In later

life he did use the surname

Clow. His death in 1957is

registered as both Hollow

and Clow, when his wife died

in 1973 her surname is

registered as Hollow Clow.

Their son used the surname

Hollow. ♣

Researcher Shirlee Cantwell

has helped me with this

article. Colin Hollow.

HOLLOW -On the -27th October 1937 at the

residence of her daughter Miss Elsie Hollow

40 Nicholson street Footscray Mary the

dearly loved wife of the late Edwin Davis

Hollow beloved mother of Albert, Robert,

Elizabeth (Mrs Hibbs) Arthur, Elsie, Jinnie,

Charlie Harry, mother of 11 children aged

83 years Colonist of 80 years.

The Argus (Melbourne) Thursday 28 October

1937

HOLLOW.-On the 23rd October, 1925 at the

residence of his son-in-law, Mr. H. Hibbs, 41

Droop street, Footscray, Edwin, the dearly be-

loved husband of Mary Hollow, loving father

of Albert, Robert, Mrs. H. Hibbs, Arthur, Elsie,

Mrs. W. Keogh, Francis, and Hector, aged 83

years.

The Argus Saturday 24 October 1925

Clow living in Prahran 1898 Mary Hollow 16 Hopetoun St. Elsternwick 1899 Mary Hollow 16 Hopetoun St. Elsternwick 1900 to 1905 No Entry

1906 Hollow, Mrs Mary, 19 Raleigh Gr. Prahran 1907 No Entry 1908 No Entry 1909 Hollow, Mrs _, 473 Bourke St. Melb 1910 No Entry 1911 Hollow, Mrs Mary, 473 Bourke St. Melb 1912 onwards no further entries for Mary or Edwin


Origin of Hollow Name -

Update In the last Hollow Log I put forward my theory of where the

Hollow name originated. Briefly, my theory is that the name

Hollow grew from the older version Holla and that Holla

might be a locational name. That is, a name that is taken from

the name of a place. Conventionally people who research

name origins have suggested that Holla and Hollow were

geographical names that were linked to a geographical feature,

in our case a hollow or alternatively a moor. Moor because our

name may have come from the word hallow and old word for

a moor. So the name was taken or given to those who live by a

hollow or moor. I argue that if this is the origin of our name

then the name should widely distributed around Britain as

there are hollows and moors all over Britain. The name is not

widely known, it is more or less restricted to Cornwall and

mostly to the western part of Cornwall, the Penwith region.

I managed to find at least two places in Western England,

actually farming properties that were name Holla. One was in

middle Cornwall near Probus, the other in Devon the adjacent

county to Cornwall. Some surnames do derive from the village

or manor or farm that people worked on. The weakness of my

argument is that neither of the Holla properties were in the

Penwith region and I could not find a place called Holla there.

My explanation is that the families that owned these two Holla

properties did have own other properties in the Penwith

region and that somehow one Holla. or maybe more than one,

took up residence in that part of Cornwall and the family grew

from there.

In the last Log I mentioned that I was going to contact

researchers at the University of Western England at Bristol

who were working on surname origins and were about to

publish there findings. This I did and I received a reply From

Richard Coates, the leading investigator of the project and

Professor of Linguistics/Onomastics at the University of the

West of England in which he said… I agree from the

evidence in the paper you attached that there is a prima

facie case for the name coming, in at least some instances,

from a place-name in Cornwall, and I’ll ask our Cornish

consultant for his comments. Richard Coates

Then a few days later…I’ve heard back from Oliver Padel,

our Cornish consultant, and I attach what almost amounts

to a full academic paper on the topic! As you will see, he

agrees with you that Hollow is likely to come from C16

Holla, and that Hollow and Hollows probably have different

origins, but he doesn’t think, on the balance of the evidence,

that Hollow/Holla is a locative name. There are different

ways of taking the evidence, and I tend to think he’s being a

bit cautious: see what you think.

Oliver Padel did pour cold water on my idea that Holla was a

locative name. The two places called Holla he concluded were

not relevant as one was in Devon and the other although in

Cornwall was in the parish of Cornelly which is adjacent to

Probus. His main argument was that if the name Holla

originated from these places there would be evidence of the

name Holla in their records.

Oliver Padel did offer his ideas of where the name came from.

…Occurring where it does at the date when it does, the surname could be

a Cornish-language one; as such, it could be either nickname-descriptive or

occupational in type; but I cannot think of any suitable word in Cornish

having the right form for either of those types. A third possibility is that it

is a patronymic. There were various vernacular forenames ending in -a, of

the pattern Tomma (Thomas), Jacka (John, Jack), Watta (Walter), and

so on, and these did give rise to surnames in the sixteenth century; again

presumably with preservation of Middle English -e (though possibly with

some Cornish-language input too, in west Cornwall). However, I cannot

readily think of a suitable forename to have given rise to Holla (Henry,

pet-form Hal, is possible but not very convincing). But that is my best

guess for an origin on the present information….

These ideas lack any evidence as Oliver Padel suggests so they

do not get us much closer to an answer. Oliver did mention a

nick name as a possible source. I have a reprint of an old

book, "The Ancient Language and the Dialect of Cornwall" by

Fred.W.P. Jago. The original printed in 1882. It contains what

it calls a Glossary of Cornish Provincial Words. Within the

Glossary are two references to Holla.

Holla-pot See Tom-holla

then

Tom-holla. A noisy, rude fellow.

Could a person who was a noisy rude fellow be given the

name Holla!

I have read of surname origins based on characteristics or nick

names, maybe we have one here. The search continues. ♣

Finally I couldn’t resist. Here is the new PS Decoy on the Swan River in Perth, the 1986 version. It does contain the ship’s bell of the original PS Decoy.

THE HOLLOW LOGhollow.one-name.net/news46.pdf · 2015. 7. 24. · Page 9 The Hollow name - Update My theory of the origin of the Name Hollow resulted in good and bad news. Hollow experts

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