William Hookins (A) Obituary

A newspaper obituary from 1899 kindly sent to me by Barrie in 2002 includes the following about William:
Mr Hookins of Chelsea passed away on December 26th in his seventy-ninth year. For over 2 years he had been laid aside from active work as the result of a paralytic stroke and a second attack brought on a fatal termination after a week's interval. Mr Hookins had been an abstainer nearly 60 years having signed the pledge early in 1839. He attended out of curiosity the first temperance meeting held in his native town of Wiveliscombe in Somersetshire. The brewers and publicans organised an opposition; the lights were put out, the forms broken up, and the convenors of the meeting were driven into a corner, when the chairman announced that nineteen persons had signed the pledge, and asked who would make twenty and Mr Hookins, disgusted at the treatment the teetotalers had received, stepped forward and by the light of a candle signed the pledge.................... On coming to London Mr Hookins was soon brought into connection with the Chelsea Temperence Society by coming upon one of their open air meetings in the lanes of Kensington where the speaker had to contend with considerable opposition and Mr Hookins appealed for fair-play and asked the people to hear what a young man from the country had to say for the principle and succeeded in gaining an attentive hearing................ He leaves behind him a daughter and several sons, two of whom are in the ministry of the Methodist New Connexion body and the whole family are teetotalers..........
Bob