W J Stallan & Mrs Mary Bower, 1948

6 Holland Street, Wellington Terrace

History of 6 Holland Street

1891

William H Genn, 49, landscape artist, b Cambridge

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1901

Scott

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1913

Harry Tredgett, florist

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1918

William James Stallan

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1939

Mary Bower, b 1883, companion help

William J Stallan, b 1881, inventor and designer of instruments and machines

Gladys E Hartshorn, b 1904, unpaid domestic duties

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In 2024 Christopher Tongue, great nephew, wrote:

Arriving at the door of his [William J Stallan] house at Holland Street, Cambridge, one would be admitted by his mature housekeeper, Mrs Bower, a lady dressed in dark colours, who was probably a widow of one of uncle’s acquaintance. No one at the time thought it unusual that the two people should share the house together – they conveyed a prim rectitude and moreover they attended chapel together each Sunday. Strangely the Cambridge street directory shows Mrs Bower as the owner, which would make dynamic Uncle Will the lodger!

The back rooms of the house were never see – theoretically they were a dining room and a kitchen. Somewhere perhaps was a sanctum of gadgetry, tools and a work bench – one never knew. Instead one was ushered into the front room, to await the arrival of Uncle, a shortish, stolid man with glasses, always in a dark suit. He would greet his newcomers solemnly and I do not think his nieces would have presumed to kiss him. No, he was the eternal bachelor, smoking a pipe, who had made his way in the world, from humble beginnings to a recognised pillar of local society, and by careful frugality become a moderately wealthy man. He could sometimes be approached for a monetary loan, if he could be convinced that the suppliant had seriously pondered all options – and the terms for repayment were definitely established.

The second son of his parents Alfred and Mary Ann Stallan of Sawston [London Road], he must have been a bright pupil at the village school, perhaps particularly in mathematics.

[for continuation see 3 London Road]

[continued at Cambridge Scientific Instrument Co.]

Final part of biographical note: He retired in 1946. All his adult life he had been an enthusiastic car driver, taking great care to get an efficient vehicle. He undertook many tour around Britain, accompanied by family members of his own generation, and in younger years had a motorcycle. He was a much venerated member of Victoria Road Congregational Chapel, reflecting the Stallan family’s non-Conformist conversion in Sawston in the early 1800s. His doctor was Rex Salisbury Woods, of Green Street, who was in attendance at William’s death, but probably not called upon much otherwise, for his patient seemed always healthy and energetic.

Uncle died in 1953, leaving a well-considered will, bequeathing all personal chattels to his housekeeper, Mrs Mary Bower, who afterwards gave me his pig-skin wallet containing little brass tools for working on small objects. As might be expected his bequests to his relations and friends had been calculated carefully into 4th, 5th or 28th parts of his estate, and he decreed the sale of his shares in the Cambridge Instrument Co. Ltd and Messrs Chivers and Sons.

To sum up, he was a man of integrity and considerable ability, living a quiet and irreproachable existence, battling with, and solving problems far beyond the rest of us to understand.

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1962

Mrs Bower

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