Eliza HOOKINS (Tree A)

Eliza HOOKINS was my paternal great, great grandmother and was born as Elizabeth SANDY in 1829 to parents William and Mary SANDY. She was baptised in St John the Baptist Church in Pawlett, Somerset.

In the 1841 Census she was living with her parents, one older, and three younger siblings in Pawlett where her father was a Thatcher. Ten years later in 1851 the family was still in Pawlett and Eliza was there with her parents and three younger siblings, two of whom had been born since the previous Census.

In the September quarter of 1854 she married Samuel HOOKINS who also presumably lived in Pawlett as the wedding Banns were read there. It turns out that a child had been born earlier that same year who took Eliza's surname of SANDY. His name was James and he was baptised the following year in the same church as his parents' marriage although his surname is recorded as HOOKINGS.

My great grandfather, William, was born in 1857 followed by Mary Ann in 1858 and Walter in 1859, all in Pawlett, and in the 1861 Census the complete family were together in the same village.

By the 1871 Census Anna Maria (1862), Elizabeth (1863), Fanny (1864), Jesse (1867) and Frederick Edward (1868) had all been born. However tragedy had hit the family before the Census took place as Eliza's husband Samuel died on 13 February 1870 at a time when Eliza was already pregnant with their 10th child. The cause of death for Samuel was from a lung inflammation possibly as a result of his work as a brickyard labourer with the brick dust often affecting the unprotected workforce.
Eliza's 10th child was appropriately named Samuel after her husband and was born later that same year, so in the Census Eliza was living in Pawlett as a widow with 9 of her children, her eldest having left home for work as an indoor servant at a local farm.

In that same Census a Frederick SHUTE was living as a boarder with Eliza CROSSMAN apparently next door to Eliza as it was the previous entry on the Census form. The entry before that was South Farm where Eliza's son James was working so he was in close proximity to the family.

1874 was another black year for Eliza as 3 of her children died - Elizabeth at 11, Frederick at 5, and her husband's namesake and youngest child Samuel at 4. It seems quite likely that next door neighbour Frederick SHUTE was of particular help to Eliza and her family after her husband's death and the loss of her children, because in 1877 they married.

By the time of the 1881 Census Frederick and Eliza were therefore living together with just one of Eliza's surviving children - her youngest Jesse. Walter had moved to a brickworks in South Wales, William had married and sister Fanny was living with him and his wife and Mother-in-Law. Mary appears to have married too.

Puriton Road Cottages, Pawlett

Before the 1891 Census came along, two more children, Fanny and her first-born James had died, leaving Eliza with just 5 of her 10 children living. Frederick SHUTE was then living at Puriton Road, Pawlett next door to William and his family. Eliza's details appear below those of husband Frederick as his wife but unfortunately the Census Enumerator omitted to include her name on the form!! - so of course she will not appear on any Census index!  Their neighbour on the other side was a 46 year old Jesse SANDY and his wife, possibly a younger sibling of Eliza, and the occupants of this row of houses therefore seem to have been related. These houses are still occupied and the HOOKINS family is remembered in one of them in the form of a brick which came form the local brickworks being incorporated in improvements carried out there, as well as a time capsule being buried including the HOOKINS Family Tree.

In 1901 Frederick and Eliza's address is shown as 2 Barton Cottages in Pawlett. The following year Frederick died and was buried in Pawlett Churchyard. At the end of 1903 Eliza also passed away.