Holland Road was laid down late in 1901 by the workers of Mr Fossett of Slough. Earlier that year much of the land that the early properties in the road would be built on had been bought bit by bit by speculator James Andrews Holland and in his honour it was decided by the Urban Council to name the new road Holland Road. The land was previously part of the "Quarrydale Estate", perhaps the grounds of the house Quarrydale which was by it though that does not look to long predate the Holland Road.
James had no previous experience in property speculation. He would later state in court that his main former career was that of an employee of the Midland Railway. On the 1901 census he was the manager of a timber merchant in Ashford near Staines Middlesex and in 1881 appears as a carpenter and joiner which seems at odds with his statement of being a Midland Railway employee. Unless he was employed as a carpenter in some way by them ???
Regardless of his experience, thanks to loans from Mr Cripps of Marlow and Garner and Sons of Uxbridge he was able to begin building up Holland Road. You can understand why this area seemed a golden prospect to such a speculator. Holland Road was within walking distance of the station and the river yet would have still felt removed from the main body of Marlow. A peaceful but well connected semi rural idyll.
First in the new road came a bungalow with an attached artist's studio, then 2 cottages. These cost £729, 18 shillings and 6 pennies to erect on top of a purchase price for all the land of £567. These were followed by five more houses in a block for himself and two for his wife Sarah (or so he would later state) on more of the land. The couple lived in home called "The Maisonette" in Holland Road. Unfortunately James had overreached himself financially and could not afford to continue to build on the rest of his land.
Though he had tenants for some of the built property this was not enough to keep him afloat and he was forced to try to sell the bungalow with studio, and 2 houses. These did not sell in two attempts and James filed for bankruptcy. There was some scepticism voiced in court that two of the properties allegedly built for his wife were genuinely not part of the bankrupt's possessions. He owed £510 to creditors at the time.
The mortgagees tried again to sell some of the property in 1906 and were seemingly successful at last. James and his wife moved away from the town. In 1911 he was a Building Works Manager boarding at Shottesdon, Shropshire.
An early family to set up home in Holland Road was the Haddon family. In 1907 Richard Johnson Haddon (who may be the father of the family or his identically named son) appeared as a witness at the Old Bailey in London when Arthur Malyon of Leytonstone, Henry East of Dean Street (fruit and horse dealer), Frank Price of Dean Street and James Newell (of Marlow or Stokenchurch reports vary) were accused of a string of thefts in London and it's environs involving horses, wheeled vehicles and harnesses.
Some of the stolen property was sold in Marlow, some at Henley Fair and some elsewhere. Richard Johnson Haddon reported taking 4 horses to Henley Fair for East, including one of the allegedly stolen animals. He also believed he had seen another of the stolen animals in a field off Dean Street by the Bank of England pub. This field was one of two rented by East.
The charges against Frank Price were dismissed by the courts at an early stage. Henry East was found not guilty and was welcomed home to Marlow by a crowd of 200 people who repaired to the Plough pub for a raucous celebration (on which more here) The rest of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in jail. The court case contains various interesting points not relating to Holland Road but to Marlow in general and how the horse dealing trade operated here in the early 1900s.
It is also noticeable for the statement that using the "F word" as Henry East was quoted as doing was common in the town in 1907 (at least in Dean Street!). There is a link to a transcript of the Old Bailey trial in the Sources section below. The earlier hearings at lower court's were reported at great length in the South Bucks Standard.
Those giving evidence for the good character of East, included Francis Crawford Caffin who was a fruit customer of his and William Fisher the butcher of Market Square
Two years earlier Richard Johnson Haddon Senior and Richard Johnson Haddon Junior had been in court at Marlow following an altercation with their Holland Road neighbour William Henry Lavell. It was alleged that a sickle had been thrown by Lavell at a dog owned by Haddon Junior and threats made against Haddon Junior himself. The judge accepted that he had not intended to harm the dog, only frighten it off and had been provoked by the dog taking one of his valuable chicks. He was thus asked to pay only half the costs of the case and Haddon Junior the rest. Lavell was bound over to keep the peace towards the Haddons.
In 1914 William Lavell, still of Holland Road was sentenced to 4 months hard labour for arson at Wright's paper mills where he worked as a packer. Drunk thanks to a long drinking session at the Carrier's Arms in Wycombe Road (that and the Plough would be his nearest pubs from home), William had wanted to get revenge on the mill owners for exploiting and under paying certain female staff as he saw it. Women in his eyes could not stand up for themselves in such matters! He set fire to a door and put up barricades to hinder attempts at extinguishing the fire. Nobody was inside at the time. William was married to Ellen (nee Smith. M 1896) who on the previous census was described as a paper mill hand. This would have been at Wright's. It is not mentioned in the court case that Ellen was one of the women William thought was being mistreated but it may have been so. The couple's address in 1901 was "New Town" the district around Holland Road so they were already close to Holland Road. It is possible their home existed in the street prior to it being named or properly laid down as a road both of which occurred several months after the census was taken. Development in Marlow was very haphazard, piecemeal and disorganized!
Written and researched by Charlotte Day.
For other posts about specific Marlow Roads, shops or farms see this index. All references to any individual on this blog can be found on the A-Z Person Indexes. Thousands of people are mentioned.
Sources:
https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?name=19070528
South Bucks Standard September 6th 1901 and 21st July 1905. Bucks Herald 27th June 1903 and June 6th 1914. Bucks Advertiser July 11th 1902. All British Library Archives via the BNA.
England and Wales Census 1911. National Archives, Kew. Census information remains Crown Copyright.
"England and Wales Census, 1901," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X96C-M5W : 20 May 2019), James A Hollands, Ashford, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom; from "1901 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing Sunbury subdistrict, PRO RG 13, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey.
"England and Wales Census, 1881," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q27J-WWZG : 12 December 2017), James A Holland, Leicester St Margaret, Leicestershire, England; from "1881 England, Scotland and Wales Census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing p. 17, Piece/Folio 3158/106, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey; FHL microfilm 101,774,883.
"England and Wales Census, 1911," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X7VP-XTT : 22 July 2019), William Henry Lavell, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom; from "1911 England and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 14, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.
GRO marriage index.
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