~ Chapter Five ~
A New Family
Life did change for them – and very quickly at that. Within months of Amy’s passing, Charlie was seen in the company of another woman. Her name was Elizabeth Holmes, she was twelve years younger than Charlie and she was destined to become his second wife. The problem was that she was already married and living with her husband, three daughters and a son elsewhere in Margate. Her maiden name was Quelch, and her mother stayed in the village of St Peters, only a short distance away.
Not surprisingly, Charlie’s sons disapproved of his relationship with Elizabeth; it is said that they all fell out seriously with him because of it. Despite their protestations, Charlie continued to woo Elizabeth and was out celebrating with her on Christmas Eve of 1906, as is evident from this account in the East Kent Times of a Margate Police Court case held on the subsequent Boxing Day:
Not surprisingly, Charlie’s sons disapproved of his relationship with Elizabeth; it is said that they all fell out seriously with him because of it. Despite their protestations, Charlie continued to woo Elizabeth and was out celebrating with her on Christmas Eve of 1906, as is evident from this account in the East Kent Times of a Margate Police Court case held on the subsequent Boxing Day:
Christmas Squabble
Charge Against Army Pensioner
Woman Stabbed
Charge Against Army Pensioner
Woman Stabbed
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Perhaps only Charlie and Elizabeth were aware of it, but at the time of that “squalid” event at her mother’s home in St Peters, Elizabeth was already pregnant with Charlie’s first child. Walter Charles Frederick Holmes, who also became known as Charlie, was born at the beginning of August 1907, marking the start of Charlie’s new family. A second son, Sydney Ethelbert Gisby Holmes, followed in 1909.
Although, as this photograph from 2005 shows, there is still a shop at 9 Market Street to this day, no-one knows for sure how long Charlie continued to operate it after Amy’s death. What is certain is that he was no longer living there in 1911. By that time, he and Elizabeth had set up a new home together in nearby Addington Street. Two of Elizabeth’s children, Nellie and Elsie, came to live with them, while her third daughter, Edith, and her son, John, continued to live with their father, Robert Holmes.
The new Gisby household was a large one, therefore, consisting of Elizabeth and her two daughters; Charlie and his three sons by Amy: George, Stephen and Thomas; and the two latest additions: a young Charlie and an even younger Sydney. |
Of the five older children, Thomas and Elsie were still at school, while George, Stephen and Nellie were all in work, as a pastry cook, a bread baker and a laundry machinist respectively. Charlie was also working, but sadly no longer as a fruiterer and greengrocer, his occupation at the age of fifty-two having been demoted to that of a bricklayer’s labourer.
The household grew even bigger in 1913 with the birth of Inez Kathleen Gisby Holmes, Elizabeth’s fourth daughter and Charlie’s first. Although it was quite obvious who her father was, no name for the father was recorded on Inez’s birth certificate, nor was one recorded on Sydney’s birth certificate. Why Charlie’s name was omitted in both those cases remains a mystery. Perhaps it was meant to afford Elizabeth some respectability; after all, she was still married at that time and still going under her married name of Holmes. Whatever the reason for the omissions, it is highly likely that Inez’s arrival would have added to the tensions running in the household as a result of the rift between Charlie and his three oldest boys over his association with Elizabeth.
In the same year of Inez’s birth, tensions were also running high in the wider world. Another “squalid squabble”, this time between the ruling monarchies of Europe, would soon escalate into a conflict that would claim millions of lives and would be dubbed The Great War. Life was about to change again for Charlie and his family.
The household grew even bigger in 1913 with the birth of Inez Kathleen Gisby Holmes, Elizabeth’s fourth daughter and Charlie’s first. Although it was quite obvious who her father was, no name for the father was recorded on Inez’s birth certificate, nor was one recorded on Sydney’s birth certificate. Why Charlie’s name was omitted in both those cases remains a mystery. Perhaps it was meant to afford Elizabeth some respectability; after all, she was still married at that time and still going under her married name of Holmes. Whatever the reason for the omissions, it is highly likely that Inez’s arrival would have added to the tensions running in the household as a result of the rift between Charlie and his three oldest boys over his association with Elizabeth.
In the same year of Inez’s birth, tensions were also running high in the wider world. Another “squalid squabble”, this time between the ruling monarchies of Europe, would soon escalate into a conflict that would claim millions of lives and would be dubbed The Great War. Life was about to change again for Charlie and his family.