Charles Frederick Hoyle

Charles Frederick Hoyle is buried with his wife Florence in Oulton churchyard.

The following is based on research by Leonie Fretwell. A more detailed account can be found at fretwell.kangaweb.com.au 

Charles Frederick Hoyle played an important part in the development of Bentley’s brewery and after the death of Henry Bentley Junior in 1886 became the managing director of the limited company, Bentley’s Yorkshire Breweries, until his own sudden death in 1913. 

He was born the eleventh child of William Fretwell Hoyle and his wife Jane (Grave Walker) at Hooton Levet Hall near Rotherham on 29 April 1851. By the time he was 10 years old he was a pupil and boarder at a small private school at Howard House, Nether Hallam, a Sheffield township. The school was run by Charles Ingledon, an Oxford University educated clergyman and teacher. 

Ten years later, at the age of 19, Charles Frederick was living back with his family at Ferham House at Kimberworth near Rotherham and training to be a brewer. 
 
By 1881, at the age of 29, he had finished his training and was working for Henry Bentley as a “Scientific Brewer”. He had also married and become a father, and for the census on 3 April 1881 was living at 5 Princess Street in Woodlesford. 

His marriage, announced in The Times, was to Florence Elizabeth White at St Saviour’s Church at Coal Pit Heath in Gloucestershire in 1879. She was a year younger than him and had been born at Nailsea near Bristol in Somerset where her father had been a colliery proprietor and a glass manufacturer employing 300 men. 

Their first daughter, also Florence, was born in 1880. They employed a cook, Annie Jubb from Wakefield; a housemaid, Sarah Shaw from Oulton; and another housemaid, Phillipa Maggs from Westerleigh in Gloucestershire.  

By 1891, as well as advancing his career, he and Florence had been busy on the home front, and they had also moved to live at The Grove at Oulton. Three more daughters and one son were born at roughly two year intervals between 1880 and 1888 – Edythe, Susan, Hilda, and Charles Frederick.

They also employed Louisa Halestead from Huddersfield as a governess to the children; Alice Ivory, a servant from Frampton in Gloucestershire; Ada Clarkson, a cook from Wakefield; and locally born Annie Taylor as a nurse. She was the daughter of brewery labourer Boyes Taylor

The family’s increasing prosperity was reflected in the fact that they were one of the earliest households locally to have a home telephone and were listed in the National Telephone Company directory of 1891-1892.

After the death of Henry Bentley Junior in 1886 Charles Federick became the general manager at the brewery. In 1892 he left to join John Smith’s in Tadcaster but appears not to have stayed there for very long and returned to Woodlesford as the managing director within a few months.   

According to the 1901 census, Charles Frederick, aged 49, and Florence, appear to have moved to the larger house at Oulton Green, sometimes referred to as Hollin Hall or The Hollings, which later became the Miners’ Welfare clubhouse. The rest of the household consisted of domestic help. He was described as Managing Director of the brewery and a Captain in the 2nd West York Royal Engineers (Volunteer), a part of the Territorial Army. 

Within five years of the 1901 census three of the daughters had married, all at St. John’s Church, Oulton. The first to walk up the aisle was Edythe Mildred, who married Philip Marsden in 1903. The next year the oldest, Florence Beatrice, married Rev. Robert Garrad. Susan Gertrude was married to Max D. Flemmick in 1906. 

Charles Frederick’s wife Florence died, aged 55, in 1909 at The Grange at Whitkirk, the home of her married daughter, Edythe.  

In 1911 Charles Frederick had two children living with him back at The Grove, Hilda and young Charles Frederick who was by then 22 years old and starting a career as a colliery engineer. Also there was a niece who was a daughter of his step-brother, Fretwell William Hoyle.

They employed three staff; a cook, Louisa Hale from Halton in Leeds; parlourmaid Gertrude Dodsworth, from Fulford near York; and housemaid Lilian Sharpe, who was born in Oulton. 

Within three years Charles was dead after collapsing on Boar Lane in Leeds on 21 October 1913. An obituary was published in The Times the following day. 

“Lieutenant-Colonel C. F. Hoyle, who had completed his full term of command of the Leeds Territorial Engineers and who resigned in 1912, was suddenly taken ill yesterday with heart trouble in Leeds while on business. He was immediately conveyed to the Leeds General Infirmary in an ambulance and there it was found that he was dead. Since 1892 Lieutenant-Colonel Hoyle had been managing director of Bentley’s Yorkshire Breweries (Limited) at Woodlesford, near Leeds. He was also for a short time connected with John Smith’s Tadcaster Brewery. He frequently spoke at meetings in defence of the licensing trade, when he considered that attacks were made upon its interests. He joined the Engineer Volunteers in 1889.”

Edythe Mildred Hoyle and Philip Saltmarshe Marsden pose for their wedding photo on the steps of Hollin Hall on 12 August 1903. The son of a Wakefield solicitor Philip met Edythe whilst he was living in Oulton working as a clerk for the land agent John Farrer. Later he took over from Farrer as agent for the Temple Newsam estate.