The family had settled in Holt around 1844 when William
Preston, grandfather of OG Sidney
Preston who died on 10 April 1918 (see profile in Roll of Honour) had
established himself as a ‘professor of music’, later opening a printing and
stationery business on the High Street.
His younger sons, Thomas and Arthur took over the business, adding the
sale of musical instruments, and later photography. Preston Brothers took some of the early
photographs in the Gresham’s albums, as well as printing postcards of Old
School House and an 1888 athletics programme.
Around 1900 the business was known as the Reliance Works, and was taken
over by Rounce & Wortley, who carried on the tradition of providing
printing services for Gresham’s for many years. Eight members of the family
attended the School, including Sidney’s father and uncle, four of his brothers,
and one cousin.
Thomas and Sarah Preston contributed to the growing fund for
the Chapel in 1914, where their son Sidney was later to be commemorated. Two more of their sons, OGs Reginald (1891-1958)
and Chamberlain (1893-1971) are recorded as serving in the War in the printed
register, in the Indian Army and Norfolk Regiment respectively, and their
daughter Mary, like her cousin Eva, worked as a nurse at nearby Letheringsett
Hospital. Reginald was registered at the Old School House in January of 1899,
but features in several photos of pupils of Weybourne Station in 1903. Like his brother Sidney he played cricket for
the School and did well at athletics and the paperchase. He also played rugby for a North Norfolk
team. Reg played an attendant in the
1904 production of Twelfth Night, and
won a prize for science before leaving in the Summer of 1907. 1909 OG News records him as working for
Lincoln & Lindsay, bankers of Brigg, in North Lincolnshire, and the 1911
Census also has him as a bank clerk. Reg is listed as serving in 1914 as a Private
with the 9th (cyclists) Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment, later
earning promotion to Lieutenant serving with the Lincolnshire Regiment when
they were attached to the Indian Army. He married Dora Druance at St. Faith’s
Church, Lincoln in 1916.
Reg’s younger brother ‘Chummy’ Chamberlain attended The Limes
School in Holt before registering in the Old School House in January of
1906. He is recorded as winning a prize
for maths in 1907 and being awarded a Holt Foundationship in 1909. On his army attestation papers of 1914 he
gives his profession as photographer, and his pictures, along with those of his
father and brothers, form part of the Checkley Collection in the Norfolk Record
Office. Chamberlain served as a Private, then a Lance-Corporal with the Norfolk
Regiment, being wounded in 1915. His
cousin Louis Goodall Preston (1899-1942) registered at Old School House a few
months after Reg, and soon showed the family prowess at sport, doing well at
athletics, although he was no model pupil, being caned twice, once for bad
work, and once for lying. In the 1911
Census Louis is recorded as a motor engineer, but just two weeks later he left
Liverpool aboard the SS Campania for
the US, to settle in Colorado where his Uncle Arthur Ling was already
established. He married Lorna Annis, and
their daughter Lillie was born in 1916. Louis worked in the US and Canada for
the next thirty years, divorcing and re-marrying in 1933. Another family rift was possibly the reason
for Louis’s uncle, OG William Gowen Preston (1847-1927) leaving Holt sometime
after 1871 with his wife and eleven children.
Shortly after, the family was in receipt of poor relief, but he is later
recorded in Norwich and other Norfolk towns working as a pressman or printing
machine worker, returning to the long-established family profession.
I am indebted to family member Debra Watkins for her Preston
blog http://pocketfulofmemories.blogspot.co.uk and to Philip West who is writing a
book on the family. The photograph shows the family on Salthouse beach, courtesy of Norfolk Record Office MC 2043/8/909x6
