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Hampshire

The earliest reference to the Hollier name in Hampshire is from 1493, when a John Hollier was recorded as owning land at Sway. Early parish register entries from the mid 16th century show Holliers at Boldre, Milford and Brockenhurst in the New Forest area, see map here. It seems likely that the Holliers in the Isle of Wight descend from this group, as the earliest references there are in Freshwater, to the west of the island.

Despite all the early references in several parishes, by the beginning of the 19th century all the Holliers and Hollyers associated with Hampshire all descend from a single family at Fordingbridge, to the north of the New Forest. The registers there only survive from 1643 and the modern lines can only be traced to the marriage of William Hollier and Anne Tague in 1776. There is no baptism for William recorded in Fordingbridge around his birth date of 1751, although one possibility is that he was from the family of John Hollier and Rebecca (née Springer) who married at Fordingbridge in 1748 and were both shown as being from the adjacent parish of Ibsley. Two of their young children were buried at Fordingbridge in 1752 and 1758, when John was shown as living at Stuckton, just south of the town.

By the 19th century, the Hampshire family are found in Portsea, Portsmouth, and Alverstoke as well as in Fordingbridge. One family branch moved to Banwell in Somerset, while several other family members moved to the Black Country and then to Aberystwyth in Wales. See also Tim Hollier's Family Album.