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Mrs Mary Margaret SHAWYER, née Holloway (1850–1879)
Her niece Miss Amy Fanny Margaret HANLEY (1869–1889)
St Mary Magdalen section: Row 21, Grave G59½

Mary Margaret Holloway was born at Balliecollie, Ireland on 24 June 1850, and her sister Grace Holloway (the mother of Amy Hanley who is also buried here) at Dundalk, Ireland in 1851. They were the daughters of Samuel Arthur Holloway (a Troop Sergeant Major born in Heston, Hounslow, Middlesex in 1824) and Jane Isabella Nott (born into a military family in Bengal) who were married at a civil ceremony in Ireland on 4 September 1848.

The girls' mother Jane Isabella Holloway died on 11 July 1861 at the age of 35, and their father married his second wife Anne Wright Charming later the same year. He had two more daughters by his second wife: Jane Henrietta Holloway (born West Bengal in 1862) and Martha Holloway (born in Murree, Punjab in 1865).

On 12 December 1866 in West Bengal, the two young daughters by Samuel Holloway's first wife were married in a joint ceremony to two serving soldiers:

• Mary Margaret Holloway (17) married Samuel Shawyer, DCM (28): he was born in Bognor Regis in 1838 and reg. second quarter with surname misrecorded as Sawyer)
• Grace Holloway (15) married William Frederick Augustus Hanley (24): he was born in West Bengal in 1842, and was a military schoolmaster.

At the time of the 1871 census Mary Margaret (20) and her husband Samuel Shawyer (33), who was a regimental sergeant major, were lodging at York Cavalry Barracks.

By 1879 Samuel and Mary Margaret Shawyer were living at Gloucester Green in Oxford. Their only child was born there, nearly thirteen years after their marriage:

• Samuel Arthur William Shawyer (born at Gloucester Green, Oxford on 21 August 1879 and baptised at St Mary Magdalen Church on 21 September).

They were described in the baptismal register as being of Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland.

Mary died in Oxford of Bright's Disease of the kidneys, just ten weeks after giving birth:

† Mrs Mary Margaret Shawyer née Holloway died at 23 Gloucester Green at the age of 29 on 5 November 1879 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 8 November (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

Her personal estate came to under £100, and probate was granted to her husband Samuel Shawyer, who was described as a retired Regimental Sergeant Major in Her Majesty's Army and whose address at the time of probate was given as 13 Portman Terrace, Ipswich.

Initially baby Samuel was looked after by Mary's sister Mrs Grace Hanley, and was still with her in Ipswich at the time of the 1881 census.

On 3 June 1880 in Taunton, Mary's husband Samuel Shawyer married his second wife, the young widow Mrs Emily Bithiah Channing (born Emily Bithiah Ridout in Long Burton, Dorset in 1855). At the time of the 1881 census Samuel (42) was a Chelsea pensioner, living at Lime Tree Terrace, Chevallier Street, Ipswich with Emily (26)

Samuel and his second wife had eight children, the first being Mabel Grace Sarah Shawyer, who was born in Ipswich in 1881. The rest were born in New Maldon, Essex: Albert Alfred Shawyer (1883, reg. as Strawyer), Ernest Herbert Shawyer (1884), Frederick Nelson Shawyer (1885), Beatrice Edith Amy Shawyer (1888, died 1889), George Edward Shawyer (1891), George Stanley Shawyer (1893), Charles Ridout Shawyer (1899).

In 1891 Samuel (52) was a publican at the Ship & Anchor pub at 188 High Street, New Maldon, Essex in 1891, and was living there with his second wife Emily (25), his son Samuel (11) by his first wife, and his six children by his second wife, who ranged in age from two months to nine years. The family employed a 12-year-old servant girl.

They were at the same address in 1901 with five of their children.

In 1911 Samuel (72), described as an army pensioner, was living at Rose Villa, 31 Mill Road, New Maldon with Emma and three of their children.

Samuel Shawyer died on 15 March 1921 in Colchester, Essex at the age of 83, and his second wife Emily died a year later.

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Amy Fanny Margaret Hanley (niece of Mrs Shawyer above)

Amy Fanny Margaret Hanley was born in West Bengal on 19 July 1869, the daughter of Mrs Shawyer's sister Grace Holloway and her husband William Frederick Augustus Hanley. She had an older sister Gertrude Alice Jane Hanley (born in Salkote, West Bengal on 13 September 1867)

At the time of the 1871 census Amy (1) was at York Cavalry Barracks with her father William (32), who was an army schoolmaster, her mother Grace (18), and her older sister Gertrude (3).

Amy's sister Gertrude died of whooping cough at the age of six in the Military Quarters in Maidstone, Kent on 26 January 1874.

The family must have been in Norwich when Amy's brother Frederick Samuel Arthur Patrick Linton Hanley was born early in 1875; he died there soon after birth.

By the time of the 1881 census Amy (11) was living at Westbourne Cottages in the Westgate area of Ipswich with her father William (39), who was still an army schoolmaster, and her mother Grace (28). Her parents were also looking after Mrs Shawyer's son Samuel, who was nineteen months old.

Amy's father William Augustus Frederick Hanley died of phthisis in Ipswich in 1884. and her mother appears to have moved down to Oxford with Amy, perhaps to be near her maternal aunt, Mrs Sarah Ann Garrett, née Nott, and her cousins.

Amy was living at 3 Walton Street in Oxford when she died of pulmonary and abdominal tuberculosis in 1889:

† Miss Amy Fanny Margaret Hanley died at 3 Walton Street at the age of 20 on 20 August 1889 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 24 August (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).

At the time of the 1891 census Amy's mother Grace Hanley (38) was living at 1 Walton Street with her cousin Margaret Garrett (21) and her parents, who were not at home on census night.

On 11 January 1892 at St Mary Magdalen Church, Oxford, Mrs Grace Hanley (39) married the widower William Wakelin (41), who was a builder's clerk. They do not appear to have had any children.

At the time of the 1901 census Grace (48) was living at 6 Friar's Entry with her husband William Wakelin (50) and his unmarried sister Elizabeth (51).

Amy's mother Mrs Grace Wakelin, formerly Mrs Hanley, née Holloway died at 4 Beaumont Buildings in St Mary Magdalen parish, Oxford on 15 October 1914 at the age of 62. Her burial on 18 October is recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church, so she too may be buried in St Sepulchre's Cemetery, especially as the burial of her husband William Wakelin, who died in 1916 at the age of 66, is also in that register, even though he was living at 76 Argyll Street in east Oxford at the time of his death.

Her aunt Mrs Sarah Ann Garrett died in 1934 at the age of 105, and is buried in a separate grave in St Sepulchre's Cemetery where her husband William Garrett had been buried in 1890.

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The only child of Mrs Mary Margaret Shawyer

Samuel Arthur William Shawyer (born in Oxford in 1879) was living (as stated above) with his aunt's family in 1881, and at the Ship & Anchor pub at 188 High Street, New Maldon, Surrey in 1891 with his father, his stepmother, and his six half-siblings.

On 30 July 1894, just before his fifteenth birthday, he joined the 7th Queen's Own Hussars, but was discharged on 30 July 1899 because of congenital myopia.

At the time of the 1901 census Samuel (21) was working in Oxford as a boots at the King's Arms Hotel on the corner of Holywell Street and Parks Road.

On 27 May 1905 he emigrated to Canada on the SS Tunisian, and in 1911 was working as a farm labourer at Brantford Township, Ontario.

On 23 January 1917 he enlisted in the 257th Battalion of the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force

On 22 May 1920 at the age of 40, Samuel Arthur William Sawyer married Elizabeth Ann Livesey (also known as Lily). They do not appear to have had any children.

He died on 4 April 1948, and was buried at Strong Cemetery, York, Ontario.