The Hookins Home in Pawlett

As previously mentioned William and Susan made their home in Pawlett and raised 11 children there from the late 1800s although 2 of them didn't survive into their teens. Pictures posted before show the property like this:















I am greatly indebted to Denise who is is the current occupier of the property and who has transformed it whilst acknowledging that it was the home of the Hookins family and she has taken great interest in the family who made this a home albeit very cramped for their large family. Here are some more up to date pictures:

We know too that William and at least one of his sons worked at the local brickworks and Denise has been able to locate a Bridgwater brick which she has had incorporated into the renovations of the building in recognition of the connection with the previous occupants. Prior to living in this property William and Susan had been living in Brown's Buildings in Pawlett which turned out to be owned by the Dunball brickworks for their employees and armed with this knowledge Denise has obtained one of the Dunball bricks too:

Details of the Hookins occupants have also been included in a time capsule hidden in the renovations which will ensure that their memory lives on.
Thank you Denise for taking an interest in the history of your new home and thereby of the Hookins family.

Nothing Like a Personal Visit Tree A

Over the many years I have been researching the family name, a lot of contacts have been made and although we continue to keep in touch over the Christmas festivities with cards and newsletters it is nowhere near as satisfying as meeting people face to face. So after many Christmas cards I finally made the trip to South Wales to meet other members included on my Family Tree.
Thank you all for your welcome, your friendship and the hospitality of Jemma and Audrey. Altogether I was able to meet with 5 people who have or have had the Hookins name plus another 3 who are related by marriage or relationship. We even recognised similarities in appearance. Three of us were then able to visit a house which about 100 years ago was the home of one of the first Hookins members to leave North Somerset and venture to South Wales. Grateful thanks to Ian, the current owner of the house, who kindly arranged for us to have a look around even though he was away at the time and thank you to his parents who managed our visit and provided information about the transformation that had occurred since the Hookins family were there.
The Hookins member was Jesse HOOKINS who has been mentioned several times in the blog over the years having lost his wife when she was only 38 leaving him with 7 children aged 13, 12, 10, 8, 5, 4 and 1. Described as a quiet man with a sense of humour he never re-married, bringing up 4 sons and 3 daughters single-handed. He died just short of his 83rd birthday 35 years after the death of his wife and 6 of his children were still alive at that point.

Bernard Lyddon Hookins International Sportsman

Bernard Lyddon HOOKINS was born on 16th November 1883 at 15 Mansfield Grove, Nottingham to William HOOKINS and his wife Ellen Jane (known as Nellie) (nee FISHER). He was the 3rd of 7 children and his second forename, Lyddon, was the maiden name of Bernard's paternal great grandmother. Bernard's father was a Methodist Minister as was William's brother John Lyddon HOOKINS and consequently this involved regular changes of address for the family over the years.
None of the family can be found in the 1891 Census but by 1901 Bernard was living at 27 Steade Road, Eccleshall, Sheffield with his parents, 5 siblings, a visitor from the LYDDON family and 1 female servant. At that time Bernard was a Bank Clerk.
In 1909 Bernard married Lucy CLARK in Tadcaster and by 1911 they were living with an Uncle and Aunt at 5 Whetley Grove, Bradford by which time Bernard was the Manager of the Yorkshire Penny Bank in Pontefract. In 1912 their daughter Betsy was born in Pontefract.
From the 1920s Bernard became involved with table tennis at local and national levels and I am indebted to Diane Webb from the English Table Tennis Association for information and photographs relating to Bernard. Bernard was an English International in table tennis and took part in the World Championships in 1926, 1928, 1930 and 1935. He competed in the Swaythling Cup in 1930 and was positioned 6th and reached the last 16 in the Men's Doubles in 1928 and 1930 with Adrian HAYDON and Victor BLANDFORD respectively. He played at international level against Wales in 1925/6 and the Irish Free State, when he was captain on both occasions, in 1929-31. He took part in the English Open in 1928, 1930 and 1933, the Men's Doubles in 1930 with Frank AMIE and in 1933 with AJ WILMOTT and in the mixed doubles in 1930 with Miss BURTON and in 1933 with Mrs AMIES.

Bernard (centre) with AJ WILMOTT & anor

From 1928 Bernard became involved in other official capacities within the game both locally and nationally. He was President of the West Riding Table Tennis League in 1928/9, Secretary in 1928/9 and President in 1934/5 of the Yorkshire County Table Tennis Association, Chairman of the newly founded Whitby & District Table Tennis Association 1934-6 and its English Table Tennis Association Representative in 1934-5 and Chairman and English Table Tennis Association Representative of the newly formed Doncaster & District Table Tennis League in 1937/8.
On a national level he represented West Riding in 1928/9 and the Northern Area in 1931/2, was Representative and Secretary for the Northern Counties, became Honorary Secretary and Treasurer of the English Table Tennis Association and latterly in 1931 was elected as Vice President.
He appears in the centre rear of a photograph at a reception by the Mayor of Pontefract celebrating the first Hungarian tour of England which is reproduced here.

First Hungarian Tour of England 1928

Bernard died in Whitby in 1946 by which time his daughter Betsy had been married to John BUTTERFIELD for 8 years and had presented Bernard and Lucy with 2 granddaughters. He pre-deceased Lucy by 13 years when she died also in Whitby.

Human Error Maketh Huge Work for Family Historians

One of the major headaches in Family History is that old records were written by hand and records available today either involve trying to decipher the rushed scrawl of say a Census enumerator wanting to get to the warmth of his home and to replenish his belly or looking at perfectly clear typed records which over the years has been subject to so much transcription. Either way bad handwriting, writing down what an ear hears from illiterate individuals with an English accent with which they are not familiar, or making an erroneous transcription all heaps confusion, frustration and time to Family History research. Consequently not only do we need to seek out records relating to the actual name we are researching (in my case Hookins) but we also have to an eye out for the many cases of Hookings, Hoskin(g)s, Hukins or even in once case Horkins all of which because of their spelling means they are often contained in lists far apart from each other.
I was very fortunate to make contact with Neville and Glenda in South Australia who kindly told me about and sent me copies of a number of records in South Australia including copies of actual gravestones. Many of these were Hookings or Hooking folk and when I began delving into the South Australian records to which they gave me the links I ended up with:

6 Birth Notices and 24 death notices from newspapers
17 Marriage records
36 Death Records
37 Birth records
15 Cemetery Memorials
3 Gravestone photographs

When I began pulling all these pieces of information together I was able to form 17 separate family units to which these records referred.
One of the most significant was a record of Thomas Hookings who was born in 1855 in Crowcombe in North West Somerset in the area where much of my research has centered. Familiar also because the names of the parents quoted matched people in my own records and when I looked at that record I saw that I also had Thomas there as one of their children but they were all Hookins then. However after Thomas left these shores and arrived in Australia in 1874 on board a ship called Darra his name changed to Hookings which name his descendants then took from that time onwards.
There follows a photo of that ship which was described in its day like this:
"The Darra was a speedy clipper ship--130 feet long and 33 feet in the beam. Built in Aberdeen,
Scotland in 1865 for the tea trade with India, the ship had more lately carried immigrants from
England to Australia. A recent run from London to Adelaide had been made in seventy days—a
record time."