Genealogy: Hopson and Stillman – 2 Newbury names share a bit of history

While tracing his family tree, Jonathan Hopson found several connections with the Stillman family.

"Until a few months ago, I was completely unaware that the Hopson and Stillman families share a number of fascinating connections in the Newbury area going back over 150 years."

The connection only came to light recently when James Stillman drew Jonathan's attention to a recent entry in the Newbury Weekly News Old Memories Revived section, “Fire Alarm”, which was originally published on 23 March 1872.

A PC Stillman was on his beat at 1.15am in Newbury when he noticed smoke coming from Joseph Hopson’s premises in Northbrook Street. (Joseph Hopson & Sons furniture business originally started trading from 28 Northbrook Street in the 1850s). A fire had broken out in the wooden partition between the kitchen and the sitting room and as the NWN reported, “the arrest of the flames and their speedy extinction, without the necessity of a resort to the fire engines, is due to the vigilance and promptitude of PC Stillman”.

Jonathan then wondered whether the PC Stillman that had valiantly come to the rescue of his great great grandfather Joseph could be one of James’ relatives?

After trawling through census returns and various local newspaper reports from the British Newspaper Archive, PC Stillman was definitively identified as William Stillman, born in 1819 in Middlesex. He married Sarah Ann Purver in 1846 in St Nicolas Church Newbury and they went on to have six children.

Jonathan said: "James’ father, Robin, had mapped out the extended Stillman family tree in considerable detail a number of years ago and confirmed that PC William Stillman was James’ first cousin five times removed ie James’ great great great grandfather George was William's first cousin."

On relooking at the Hopson family tree, Jonathan noticed that a William Hopson, bricklayer, had married a Sarah Louisa Stillman, dressmaker, at St Nicolas Church Newbury in 1845.

Sarah was the daughter of James and Elizabeth Stillman (nee Grubb).

Census returns showed that Sarah Louisa Hopson had spent at least 20 years as a midwife and nurse at North End infant school from 1881-1901 although intriguingly, there did not appear to be any online record of husband William from 1871 until his death in 1889 in Newbury.

"However, Robin’s meticulously researched Stillman family tree proved that Sarah Louisa Hopson, like William Stillman, was James’ first cousin five times removed."

Another member of the Stillman family, Francis Herbert, worked as a reporter at the Newbury Weekly News for 44 years prior to taking on the editorship in 1921. Frank Stillman was also founder of the 'Tea and Tobacco Fund', now known as the Over 80s Parcel Fund.

To round off the Stillman/Hopson family connection, Robin Stillman was a pupil at St. Bartholomew’s preparatory school in Newbury, around the same time as Jonathan's late father David Hopson.

Jonathan said: "Robin remembers a sixth form chemistry experiment not going to plan, resulting in a loud explosion. Thankfully, damage was apparently limited to my father suffering merely slightly singed eyebrows."

In a previous article Jonathan set out ways you can start to research into your ancestry.

Following on from the original article, Bryan Sylvester also sent in these extra pointers.

Before setting out to map out your family tree, it is worth checking to see if it has already been done by someone else. Ancestry has a Public Member Trees section and Genes Reunited includes a family tree search function.

The Newbury Weekly News back issues from 1867 to 1906 are searchable online at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk and often contain tributes to the deceased and details of who attended the funeral.

Another useful local resource is The Friends of Newtown Road cemetery in Newbury who have painstakingly transcribed the details of everyone interred there and created a valuable online resource which is freely available at www.fnrcnewbury.org.uk – click onto “Burials” for a complete alphabetical listing.

This article first appeared in Out & About, September 2022.