Family Gathering; Thoughts About Large Families, Multi Generational Living, & the Holding Family Days

Large families are often considered synonymous with families of the past; parents with poor access to reliable birth control methods making the most of the insurance that a large family might provide. Hardly a necessary thing these days where families have better access to pension plans, health care, and support for family planning. In the past many children would potentially mean more options for the parents' care as they aged. Multi-generational living in Britain, was far more common in previous eras than now. Having older parents living in the Victorian family home meant that childcare, housework, and food preparation was easier. The mother, or wife of the head of the household, might even be able to work outside the home in such circumstances, bringing in some extra, much needed income. 

I've often wondered at the relationships between siblings of such large families. Do the children all know each other well? Or do the older children know the siblings from their end of the range best? Or perhaps the older siblings know the youngest best (and vice versa), as they were the siblings who cared for them the most, as babysitters to their baby siblings. Did they all get along? Often large families would be crammed into relatively small dwellings; sharing beds until a fairly old age, sometimes right up until the night before their marriage. There must have been tension and friction when people quite literally rub along together in such close proximity. How does such a raising up affect a person, and what kind of an adult do they then become?

My grandfather was one of ten children; Edith, Richard, Frank, Lily, Lena, Joseph, John, Olive, Kenyon, and Doris. Both of his parents, my great grandparents, were from big families. Clearly, 'big families' was a part of their family culture, and common for people of that time. In 1901 the Holding family were living at 3 Gage Street, Lancaster. The census report shows that my great grandparents Kenyon and Sarah Annie Holding were living there with 5 children, all under the age of 8, born in perfect 2 year gaps. Sadly this building no longer appears to stand but Gage Street was and is part of central Lancaster, and the shopping/commercial district. The picture below shows Gage Street from 1963, and we can see on the right the odd numbered buildings. Number 3 Gage Street would have been at the far end; the first of the shorter buildings, before the tall ones at the far end of the street. I suspect that there would have been two rooms on each floor above a ground floor shop. Considering that there would have been no bathroom, as we require now, it might have felt quite roomy for the family of 7. One room being the kitchen, another the parlour, with 2 bedrooms above, one being for the parents and the other for the children.

Within a decade the Holding family had swollen to 10, with Edith (at the age of 19) having left the family home to live at her uncle and aunt's house on nearby Salisbury Road, for work as a domestic servant. The family according to the 1911 Census, had moved across the street to 10 Gage Street. You can see #10 below, as it looks from Google Streetview.

10 Gage Street, Lancaster

This property doesn't look any bigger than how I imagine #3 would have been, but now the family boasted 8 children between the ages of 16 and 1 years of age, with the youngest of the family, Doris, not yet born. Doris was, at this point in history, not yet a twinkle in her father's eye; she was born in 1914. Accommodating so many quickly growing people must have been a squeeze. By 1911, however, Kenyon, my great grandfather, was self employed as a master window cleaner, and employing two of his own sons. With the store front below, and his name, address, and business listed in the 1912 directory, I have assumed that they also had the store on the ground floor as part of their accommodation. Perhaps some of the older children slept in the back room of the shop.

Bulmer's History and Directory of Lancaster and District, 1912-13

The family remained at 10 Gage Street until at least 1920, after which they took a change of address and a change of career, by running a public house and hotel on nearby Penny Street. Before that move, the family had experienced the great loss of the eldest sons, Richard and Frank who both died in WWI. Prior to their move, and in their last months of living at 10 Gage Street the family would have numbered mum and dad, Sarah Annie and Kenyon, plus kids Lily, Lena, Joseph, John, Olive, Kenyon, and Doris; the children being between the ages of 6-22. That would have been 9 people, the majority of them being adults, or teenagers, all living, cheek by jowl, in this small home.

Gage Street can be see in this map, on the north west corner of Dalton Square.

This article by Psychology Today explains how large families can impact sibling relationships in a positive way. 

"With a bunch of children, siblings in a large family may see themselves as a team, helping to create closeness. Studies actually do show that children from larger families are more likely to be altruistic, cooperative, and interdependent than children from smaller families."

So, whilst there were undoubtedly fractious moments, it's more than possible that the family did indeed rub along rather nicely together. In fact memories of family gatherings, that happened regularly, when I was a child, suggest that this was indeed the case with the Holding siblings.

As the surviving children grew up, and started families of their own, the Holdings scattered to other parts of the country, and beyond. In an effort to keep the family bonds from breaking, the Holding children, and their children, started to hold regular, annual family days. Family Days involved one small part of the large extended family hosting everyone else; brothers, sisters, their children, and their grandchildren. People would bring dishes and drinks to share, and homes were overrun by everyone from marauding children to seniors in garden chairs, all to the sound track of laughter, chatter, and sometimes tears. 

There was certainly a sense of closeness, and a team-like culture, evident on those family days. I have some pretty blurry memories of Family Days, which I found all a bit overwhelming as a young child, as I didn't know that part of my family very well. We lived at the other end of the country from most of these relatives, and as such did not see them very often. But I what I do remember is a strong sense of safety, love, and kindness amongst this gang of somehow familiar strangers. Perhaps the ethos of the family I sensed as a young child, was in part, a result of the childhoods those siblings had enjoyed, as members of that large family.

The Holding Siblings, minus Doris, who was not yet born when the photo was taken, circa 1912

I wish that I had spent more time talking with the original Holding siblings; hearing their stories of yesteryear, and taking note of exactly how many Lancaster pubs and hotels the family had run over the years. But who would have known at that young age, that I was to develop this fascination in genealogy.

Whilst large families have definitely been on the decrease since the Victorian era, multi generational living does appear to be on the rise. Statistics Canada (a Canadian Federal Government agency) reported a study in recent years that recorded an increase of 11% of intergenerational households since 2001. It seems likely that whilst my children haven't experienced a large family upbringing, there is a high chance that their children, my grandchildren (should they have any), will at least enjoy a multi-generational home; and right now, I'm not sure how I feel about that!

#Holding

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https://www.robgolfi.com/blog/the-growing-trend-of-multigenerational-living-in-canada/

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18.0&lat=54.04788&lon=-2.79754&layers=117746212&b=1&o=100

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/band-brothers-and-sisters/201207/fighting-piece-mom-family-size-and-sibling-relationships#:~:text=With%20a%20bunch%20of%20children,than%20children%20from%20smaller%20families.