Family and Football II

Of all the posts I've done, one I didn't think would be followed up would be Family and Football, if only because I have such limited knowledge of the game and wouldn't recognise the names of players if they appeared in my family tree.

My great-grandfather, Wilfred Thomas Moore of Stratford, was a referee for Arsenal in the 1932-3 season, and amongst his belongings was that year's season programme. Herbert Chapman was then the manager (he died the following year).

Wilfred was born in 1892 in Shoreditch, the son of Charles Newman Moore and Annie Elizabeth Clary. Charles Newman Moore was born in Mile End in 1863, son of James Bingley Moore and Amelia Louisa Newman. And James Bingley Moore was born at Mansfield Road, Nottingham in 1830, son of Thomas Moore and Ann Twigg, and grandson of John Moore and Mary Bingley.

It's the Nottingham connection I was looking at earlier this week. The Moores lived in St Mary parish, Nottingham, and in Radford and Sneinton, for several generations, moving there from Woodgate, Leicester some time around the start of the 19th century, and most were involved in  Nottingham's lace trade.

Thomas Moore fell on hard times and by the time of the 1841 census was in gaol for debt. He died of consumption seven weeks after the census, aged only 45. James, his only son, went to live with his maternal grandparents, James Twigg and Sarah Mart, and began working in a warehouse before becoming a travelling salesman and journeying all over the country. He married Amelia Louisa Newman in Hackney in 1860 and they had six children (according to Amelia's 1911 census return - I've managed to find five), no two of whom shared the same birthplace. After 1851, when James was living with his sister and his maternal grandparents in Nottingham, I can find no evidence of further connection with the Nottinghamshire family: no visitors at the time of the census, no witnesses at weddings. This absence of proof isn't evidence that the travelling Moores didn't stay in touch with the Nottingham Moores, just evidence that I haven't managed to find anything to say that they did.

James Bingley Moore died aged only 48 from phthisis (consumption again, but what a great word for Scrabble players!) in Shoreditch. Charles Newman Moore, his second son, was then just a few months shy of his fifteenth birthday. Again there is no evidence of any links between Charles and the his cousins in Nottingham. By the time Charles' son Wilfred was born in 1892, and by the time he was working as a referee in the 1930s, it's questionable if he even knew he had any family in Nottingham. Certainly my grandfather, born in 1921, had no idea where his father's family came from before they were in London.

But back in Nottingham was James Bingley Moore's sister Levinia. Born in Radford in 1836, she worked as a milliner and in 1866 gave birth to an illegitimate child, Samuel Woodroffe Moore. There are a number of Woodroffe families in Nottingham at the time, and I believe the middle name to be a clue to his father's identity. When the child was two, Levinia married Edward Hollis, a widower 27 years her senior, and quite possibly her uncle (Edward's first wife was one Lavinia Moore, daughter of John - I suspect this is the same John Moore who was married to Mary Bingley, above). There were no known children of Edward's first marriage, but two daughters, Mary Elizabeth Hollis and Emily Bingley Hollis, of his second.

On the 1871 census Samuel Woodroffe Moore is is described as Edward Hollis' son-in-law, an old term for stepson: having married the boy's mother, Hollis became his legal father, or his father in law, a different meaning than the modern one. By 1881 Samuel is now Samuel Hollis and described as Edward's son.

I thought I'd try looking for Samuel Woodroffe Moore to see if someone else had researched his life and possibly could give a clue to his father's identity. Imagine my surprise, then, to find him on Wikipedia of all places, as an English football manager and trainer - and a trainer of Arsenal at that!   His time at Arsenal apparently was brief, 1894-1897, certainly too early for Wilfred Thomas Moore, then aged 2-5, to have been appointed because the trainer (or manager...or not) was his father's first cousin.

Sam Hollis lived until 1942, spending more than 30 years of his life in Bristol, occasionally managing Bristol City FC. When he died on 17 April, he left his estate (£853 0s 3d) to his daughter, Mrs Marie Margaret Merchant-Locke. (Marie was Sam's daughter with his second wife, Lilian Hurst, whom he married within weeks of his first wife's death in late 1922. Marie was about two years old at the time...).

So there we go: two cousins, one football club, no evidence that they even met. Sometimes half the fun of research is spotting coincidences.

Western Daily Press - Monday 20 April 1942

Page 3, Column 2

PIONEER OF LOCAL FOOTBALL DIES IN BRISTOL

Career of Mr. Samuel W. Hollis

     The death has occurred of Mr Samuel Woodroffe Hollis of the Rose and Crown, Redcross Street, Bristol, one of the pioneers of local professional Association football.

     Mr Hollis came to Bristol in 1897, when appointed the first manager of Bristol City F.C.

     He was given £30 to build up his team, but the whole team, obtained for “a song,” created a revolution in the football world.

     After two seasons the City Club officials thought they could do without him, but two years later, with the financial position in a terrible state, he was recalled for a while, and then went to Newport County, but was called upon a third time to manage the City at a much later date.

     After severing his connection with Soccer, he became a licensee at the Neptune, Engineers’ Arms, and Southville Hotel; was employed at the Bruce Cole Institute; and was in business at Stokes Croft for some years. He was one of the oldest licensees in Bristol, and he leaves two sons (one is in the Army) and a daughter.

     A Freemason, he was a member of the Eldon Lodge.

     The funeral is to-day, the interment being at Arno’s Vale.

From the British Newspaper Archive