THOMAS EDWARD (c1833-1886) was born in Dedham, Essex, but later moved to Clapham. He was a Master Farrier and had a blacksmiths shop. The definition of a farrier is a blacksmith who has the added skill of being able to put a horse shoe on a horse. His shop was in Howard Street, Battersea (Howard Street later changed to Bridport Terrace). He was a blacksmith and farrier all his life, although earlier he was known as a ‘shoeing smith’. Shoeing smiths shod horses and knew the blacksmith’s trade.

JOHN EDWARD HOLLAND (1871-1940) was the eighth, and youngest, child of Thomas Edward. John started work as a farrier when he was 11 years old. He lived at Forge Cottage over the blacksmiths shop. Having learnt to be a farrier from his father, he worked on the railways as a farrier for nearly 40 years, eventually becoming a journeyman farrier. He worked at Nine Elms, Vauxhall. In the 1901 Census he was listed as a ‘farrier blacksmith’.

In the days of horse transport, most smiths would have been both farrier and blacksmith, the difference between them being that a farrier have the competence to trim a horse’s foot and make and apply a shoe, but a blacksmith is involved only in the manufacture of items out of metal.

John Edward Holland was my great grandfather. I do not know whether he and his wife were Christians, but they sent their daughter (my grandmother) to the Strict Baptist Sunday School in Clapham, and his wife had John 3:16 written out at the front of her Bible, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’.

We are proud to continue their family tradition of working with metal. It’s in my blood! Unfortunately, though, we don’t have the skill to shoe horses!