Posted by Peter Hyland on May 17, 2014 at 14:03:44 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Jibbooms and Bobstays -- Re: Beckfoot/Lanehead posted by Roger Wardale on May 16, 2014 at 10:56:57:
The 'Miss Melly' mentioned by Roger would have been Louise, the daughter of Mrs Ellen Melly, also a Lanehead resident and widow of Andre Melly who had migrated from Switzerland to Liverpool and had founded the Melly dynasty of successful Liverpool merchants (George, the jazz singer, was a descendant). Lanehead eventually came into the ownership of the Holt family, who allowed the Collingwoods to live there rent-free, until Ernest Altounyan bought the property.
Emma Holt, daughter of George Holt (who founded the Lamport & Holt Shipping Line) is of course "the Great Aunt". The Holt, Melly and Rawdon-Smith families had intermarried. All these great families had Liverpool connections, and W G Collingwood was a Liverpudlian. The top end of Coniston Water was almost a Liverpool 'colony', although the families concerned were probably more conscious that they were neighbours of John Ruskin. If only houses could talk !