Dawlish World War One Project

A letter from the officer commanding the Honourable Artillery Company says that while Mr Holman was on sentry duty on February 17th he was killed by a stray shot. A comrade writes: “His first thought was that most evidently he must warn the guard; this he did, becoming unconscious immediately afterwards.”

In 1871 Richard Holman (1836-98) and his wife Eleanor Mary (nee Haswell, 1837-1917) were living in Topsham with their nine year old son Herbert (1862-1928), who was born in The Elms, on The Strand, Topsham(Nolan and Black family tree).
By 1881 Herbert Holman was an undergraduate of Christ College, Cambridge, and on 13 July 1887 he married Sophia Hawkes Andrew (1864-1933) in Exeter. ) (Dodd Family Tree)
By 1891 they had moved to ‘Wetherly”, Thrale (?) Road, Streatham and had the first two children, Dorothy Andrew (1889-) and Alwyn Ansell (1890-).
The 1901 census shows Paul Holman, 8, as a boarder at Banstead Hall, (presumably a boy’s school, run by Edward Jervis Maitland) with his older brother Alwyn A Holman, 11.
The 1911 census shows Herbert Holman as a Barrister at Law, Marine Insurance, living at Ashcombe Tower, near Dawlish with his younger brother Thomas J Holman visiting at the time of the census. Sophie Hawkes Holman and Paul appear as boarders at the Porthminster Hotel, St Ives, and Paul is an undergraduate.