Страна: Великобритания
Родился: 1880 г.
Умер: 1959 г.

Thanks to John Wilson we now have dates for Harry Woolley, who was born in Hurst, Lancashire, in 1880. He grew up in Ashton Under Lyme where his father, John (also born in Hurst, c.1843), was a waiter in a public house; his mother, Alice (born in Millbrook, Cheshire, c.1842), was a cotton weaver and Harry was their second child, following Eliza Ann, born in 1871. In census records for 1881 and 1891 the family name is given as Wooley (with one 'l'). By 1891, Alice was widowed and taking in lodgers at their Alexander Street home; Eliza was working as a cotton winder and Harry as a weaver, his age erroneously given as 16, although he was only 10. (I will add that it is not unknown for census records to be in error, as any regular reader will know.)

I've not found Alice, Eliza or Harry in the 1901 census but there is a Harry Woolley living in Bristol at the time of the 1911 census, which I don't have full access to. However, by searching in different ways I can say that this Harry Woolley was born in Lancashire and gave his age as 29, so it might be «our» Harry.

Harry Woolley was married twice. His second marriage was to Sheelah A. McCarthy in 1954, by which time he was living in Sussex.

John, related by marriage through this second marriage, tells us that Harry also made miniatures and produced some wonderful water colours of beautiful and elegant women and landscapes, also producing landscapes in oils. One of his oil paintings (The Wave) can be seen above.

He died near Salisbury, Wiltshire, in 1959, aged 78.