Skip to main content

Who Was Maria Holland?

Who Was Maria Holland?


A Portrait of Maria Holland - Once Hanging at St. Josephs Orphanage on Mount Street
A Portrait of Maria Holland - Once Hanging at St. Josephs Orphanage


Mrs Maria Holland, was a wealthy Catholic woman from Preston.  She donated land and money to establish an orphanage, hospital and dispensary on Mount Street (St. Joseph's Orphanage).  These facilities served the community for over 50 years.  She died in 1878, leaving a lasting legacy of care and charity in Preston.


St Joseph’s Orphanage 2004. Photo Credit: The Victorian Society
St Joseph’s Orphanage 2004. Photo Credit: The Victorian Society


That's information, which is fairly readily available on the Internet and has been copied from place to place, but without much other detail about who Maria Holland actually was.  This includes featuring on the Historic England listing for the orphanage, Urban Explorers accounts of visiting the Orphanage, and various news articles about fires at the orphanage and its gradual demise.  

These articles left me with a number of questions.

I had a possible connection, based on a question and comments that I had seen on the web.


Does anyone have any information on Elizabeth Roper and the school now known as Roper Hall on Friargate? 


St Joseph's Hospital for the Sick Poor, more commonly known as Mount Street Hospital opened in 1877 funded by Maria Holland nee Roper who donated £10,000 of her own personal money into a trust that funded the opening of this hospital.


I still had a few questions.

  • Where does Maria Holland appear from? 
  • Who was Mr. Holland? 
  • Is is true that she was nee Roper? 


The comment doesn't directly say it, but there is an inference that Elizabeth Roper is connected to Maria Roper (Holland).

A few Internet searches revealed a bit more detail, and I was able to piece together a slightly better picture.

One website (link below) had done some excellent spadework with parish registers, censuses and newspaper notices.  It looks like the “mystery” of Maria Holland can be slightly better resolved once you set her back into the bigger Roper family of Preston.

  • Robert Roper (c.1758–1838), mason/architect of Fishergate, and his wife Lucy Miller (1760–1843) had a large Catholic family in Preston.
  • Their youngest child was Maria Roper (c.1805–1878), almost certainly baptised at St Wilfrid’s (though the relevant register is missing).
  • In 1839 she married James Holland of Swallow House, Penwortham (Preston Chronicle, 26 Jan. 1839).
  • Widowed later, she appears in the 1870s as Mrs. Maria Holland, the benefactress who gave £10,000 to found St Joseph’s Orphanage (1872) and then St Joseph’s Hospital for the Sick Poor (1877).
  • Her will was proved in 1878 with personal estate under £25,000.


St Joseph's Orphanage in Theatre street. Listed on the National Heritage List for England.
St Joseph's Orphanage. Listed on the National Heritage List for England.


The Roper sisters


Maria had elder sisters Elizabeth, Ellen, Mary, Ann, Lucy etc., many of whom remained unmarried and lived together in Fishergate.

Elizabeth Roper (1783–1869) is the one associated with Roper Hall on Friargate — she endowed Catholic schooling there.

That explains why you see both “Elizabeth Roper” and “Maria (Roper) Holland” cropping up as benefactors of Catholic causes in Preston: they were sisters, working in parallel but in slightly different spheres (education vs. health/charity).


The “Mr. Holland” question

Maria’s husband was James Holland, Esq., son of Thomas and Mary Holland.

He is named in the 1839 marriage entry and newspaper announcement.

He appears to have been comfortably established (Swallow House, Penwortham), but Maria’s real fortune came from her Roper inheritance.


Swallow House, Penwortham, as seen on Ordnance Survey Map from 1848 - Six Inch to One Mile First Edition
Swallow House, Penwortham, on Ordnance Survey Map from 1848


The wider picture is:

  • Elizabeth Roper is the eldest daughter, philanthropist, remembered via Roper Hall.
  • Maria Roper (later Mrs. Holland) is the youngest daughter, major benefactress of St Joseph’s Orphanage and Hospital.
  • They were sisters in the same Catholic gentry family of Preston.
  • Maria’s money was “her own” because she inherited from the Roper estate — not just from marriage to James Holland.


Robert Roper (c.1758–1838), mason/architect of Fishergate

m. Lucy Miller (c.1760–1843)

├── Elizabeth Roper (1783–1869) – Catholic benefactress; 

 |         linked with Roper Hall, Friargate

├── Matthew Roper (1785–1789) – died young

├── Mary Roper (1787–1790) – died young

├── Helen (Ellen) Roper (1789–1867)

├── Mary Roper (1791–1851)

├── Ann Roper (1794–??) m. 1824 William Gillow, gentleman

├── William Roper (1796–1802) – died young

├── Lucy Roper (1799–1836)

├── Alice Roper (1801–1802) – died young

├── William Roper (1803–1812) – died young

└── Maria Roper (c.1805–1878) 

       m. 1839 James Holland, Esq., of Swallow House, Penwortham

       → became Mrs. Maria Holland, benefactress of

          St Joseph’s Orphanage (1872) and Hospital (1877)


St Joseph's Orphanage in Theatre street. Listed on the National Heritage List for England.
St Joseph's Orphanage. Listed on the National Heritage List for England.


St Joseph's Orphanage in Theatre street. Listed on the National Heritage List for England.
St Joseph's Orphanage. Listed on the National Heritage List for England.


.

+---------------------------------------+

.

Further reading and sources of information


The Family of Robert and Lucy ROPER

St Wilfrid's Catholic Cemetery, Preston - FURTHER INFORMATION

https://www.mit-stamtrae.co.uk/st_wilfrids/st_wilfrids_preston_further_information_R.htm


.

Mrs Maria Holland, a wealthy Catholic woman from Preston (1873)

Caritas Care -  a charity providing care and support to children families and communities

https://www.caritascare.org.uk/1873/


.

Swallow House, Penwortham, as seen on Ordnance Survey Map
from 1848 - Six Inch to One Mile First Edition
National Library of Scotland 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=17.3&lat=53.74633&lon=-2.71149&layers=257&right=ESRIWorld


.

ST JOSEPHS ORPHANAGE, THEATRE STREET

Listed on the National Heritage List for England

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1207336


.


Portrait of Mrs. Maria Holland in 1873 - St. Joseph's Orphanage, Preston
Portrait of Mrs. Maria Holland in 1873 - St. Joseph's Orphanage, Preston



~





Labels:
Location: Mount St, Preston PR1, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Hidden Viaduct of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway

The Hidden Viaduct of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway The Old Railway Line On a personal level, I am familiar with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, or at least the disused sections around Preston and South Ribble.  I used to cross a section near Bamber Bridge on may way to school in the mid nineteen-seventies, and I am sure that there were still a few goods trains pulling loads of oil tankers crossing Brownedge Road (Brownedge Lane) that occasionally stopped us if I'd gone to school on the 113 bus.  Passenger services had long since stopped and when the goods trains had also ceased, the rail company ('British Rail') quite quickly removed the infrastructure.  This was definitely the rails and sleepers, but perhaps not the ballast straight away.  From that point forward, it became the playground of a few of the local children, myself included. Brownedge Level Crossing, Bamber Bridge around 1905 At that point, we often would have adventures in the remains of T...
2 comments
Read more

Fall Of Thirteen Arches of the Ribble Viaduct on the Preston Extension of the East Lancashire Railway.

Fall Of Thirteen Arches,  of the Ribble Viaduct on the Preston Extension of the East Lancashire Railway. Following on from my post about the Hidden Viaduct near Preston, once know as "The Blue Bridge", I put the old picture looking from Miller Park and my photograph of the top of a buried arch on a local social media group.  That solicited a comment from a group member that pointed towards an old news article. Hidden Viaduct near Preston, once know as "The Blue Bridge" This news article revealed that there had been problems with the arches during the construction, and this actually led to thirteen of them collapsing.  It was entitled "Fall of Thirteen Arches of the Ribble Viaduct on the Preston Extension of the East Lancashire Railway".  It came from the Preston Guardian published on Saturday 27th October 1849.  I ran the scanned image of the newspaper extract through an online OCR (optical character recognition) software process and converted the image in...
2 comments
Read more

Crosby Blitz Beach - Remains from the city of Liverpool before World War II

Crosby Blitz Beach How did I get here?   In January 2023, I discovered the remains of an old building on the banks of the River Ribble in Penwortham.  I was intrigued.  It wasn't until December 2023 that I discovered what it was.  A member of the Preston Past and Present Facebook group posted some pictures with the description, "Preston Town Hall 1862-1947 R.I.P. built by George Gilbert Scott."  I found it fascinating, so I went back for another look in early 2024.  You can read about it here: The Remains of Preston's Third Town Hall - https://www.mylancs.uk/2024/02/the-remains-of-prestons-third-town-hall.html More recently, I was watching YouTube videos, and went on a journey through some recommendations (thanks to the YouTube algorithms).  On this particular evening, I started with a video about building developments around Liverpool City Centre.  It was created by a gentleman called Aidan, who goes by the handle of  AidanEyewitn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Abandoned Houses in Ulnes Walton near Leyland in Lancashire - Low House

Abandoned Houses in Ulnes Walton near Leyland in Lancashire - Low House Strictly speaking, I suppose the word in the title should be 'Buildings' as opposed to 'Houses', however, the main place of interest is 'Low House'.  From a historical point of view, that location seems to have been in existence for an number of centuries.  At this stage, it seems unlikely that the abandoned buildings represent the original property.  Web searches are not revealing any great detail at this point. The journey starts when I began watching urban and historical exploration videos on YouTube.  In the past, I had always been interested in exploring, and finding out more information about the places I had visited.  Watching the videos opened up a number of opportunities to find out about new places.  On this occasion, it was more about the tools and methods of finding 'stuff', as opposed to somebody suggesting a location on a video. I had learned about some old maps hosted ...
Post a Comment
Read more