Page 154 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

Edward F. who was born in Woolwich married Elizabeth Lazenby in Devon in 1953 and they had three children – Patricia A. (1954-?), Anthony E. (1956-?), and Jonathan C. (1958-?); they were born in Southwark, Ealing and Norwich respectively, presumably reflecting the family moves in London and the south-east of England. John F. who was also born in Woolwich married Brenda Thornton (1927-?) in Leeds in 1951 and they had four children – Mary E. (1953-?), Peter William (1957-?), Charles David (1959-?) and James S. (1961-?); Mary was born in Southwark, while the three boys were born in Droitwich.
William’s brother, Alfred, who had married Hannah Emma Gray, lived till 1926 dying in Lambeth, while his wife, Hannah, lived a further 14 years dying in Bishop Stortford in 1940. Meanwhile, what of their two children – Marjorie Gray (1892-1969) and Ronald Gray (1898-1980)? Marjorie married Stuart Mallinson in Knaresborough in 1916 and they had four children – Michael, Justin, Terrence and Sheila – but, of course, they were Mallinsons and not Soothills! Ronald married Thelma Violet Bird (1899-1997) in Birmingham in 1926. Ronald died in North Buckinghamshire in 1980 and Thelma in Tunbridge Wells in 1997, but they had no issue, so this line of Soothills from Alfred disappeared in the late 1990s with the death of Thelma in 1997. Ronald, however, had become well-known during his lifetime.
The third brother, Walter (1866-1951), had a rather different trajectory. Walter had married Laura Beckett (1864-1935) in Ormskirk in April 1898. By the time of the 1911 census Walter and Laura were on an upward trajectory in the sense that they had a 15-year-old general domestic servant, Annie Leaney, who was born in Woolwich, Kent. They also had two children, Herbert William (1900-?) and Bernard Walter (1902-?). Herbert William married Kathleen Beverley on a date and location currently unknown, while Bernard Walter married Jeanne Cruikshank also on a date and location unknown. But what is known is that Bernard and Jeanne had two children – David Bernard (1939-?) and William Edward (1942-1960). However, this story is incomplete and is discussed further in Chapter 6 as this part of the family emigrated to Australia.
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