From: Jeff Bailey
To: R H Neergaard
Date: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 3:07 PM
Subject: Re: Edward William Treadaway Hoare

Dick,


    A journeyman was a sort of traveling craftsman selling his products or services from house to house
 
    Leather Lane is a road running north off Holborn Viaduct (that has a regular street market) and Greville runs across Leather Lane.
 
I note from the photo you sent me that TH is wearing a "Devonshire" provincial apron (rather than a Hertford one that he is congratulated on in my extracts).  There is no mention of the Devonshire Provincial award in my minute books.  (Minute books are rather formal and always list provincial honours immediately after, and every time, a name is mentioned.)

Regards,

Jeff
 
----- Original Message -----
From: R H Neergaard
To: Jeff and Anne Bailey
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 6:53 PM
Subject: Re: Edward William Treadaway Hoare

EWTH's age and lineage, like his life, pose mysteries. 

He is shown as 56 on his 1922 marriage license, so born in 1866.  His death certificate also reflects that date (but would have merely reported only what his widow believed, so ought to agree).  I think he may have fibbed about his age when he married (he claimed "56";  she was at the time only 33), but assuredly he would have made himself younger rather than older. 

There's other data from the 1861 and 1881 census and supporting documents, listing a family of James -, Edmund -, and Edward - Treadaway Hoares, in Clerkenwell (London), who were, among other things, in the inn-keeping business.  The Edward of that family was 17 in 1881, so born in 1864 (there was also an Edward Hoare born in Westminster 1866, but the parents are wrong).

On his 1922 marriage certificate, EWTH listed as his father Edmund Downes Hoare.  The 1881 census family's head of household was Edmond (sic) D. Hoare.  But this family's Edward's birth certificate (of 1864), which I sent for, lists his father as Edward William Tredaway (sic) Hoare.

The juxtaposition of the names Treadaway and Hoare would seem to make it a virtual certainty that we're dealing with one family, but the exact names and dates keep slipping in and out of focus.  Like having two almost identical Treadaway Hoare families in the same place at the same time, but in parallel universes.

My friend, EWTH's son, has been told that EWTH had been associated with the Hoare banking family, but had been cast out in disgrace for scandalous behavior.  He was also told that his father had married at least twice, probably three times, was famously debonair and a ladies' man, had never worked a day in his life, but had always lived as if he were wealthy (he was listed as "of independent means" on his son's 1923 birth certificate).  But after he died (in 1927), his widow was left destitute, and herself died three years later, leaving their son an orphan at seven.  (Had he been "exiled" with an allowance?)

Attached is an Excel spreadsheet listing data compiled so far on EWTH and his family.

Your interest is most welcome!  I'm glad to have learned about that census site.

Regards,

Dick