Arthur Owen Hollick and Gladys Hollick (nee Herbert)
The unusual memorial next to the Meadows Gate in Stoneleigh Churchyard commemorates
Arthur and Gladys Hollick. It takes the form of a column of stones taken from the rubble of the old Coventry Cathedral, with a simple plaque attached.
Arthur Owen Hollick was the son of Henry Hollick, farmer of Milbourne Grange, and his wife Rosa Amelia nee Cooper. He was born on 14 September 1890 and baptised at Stoneleigh on 15 October; he had two brothers and two sisters. By 1906 he had joined the Merchant Navy and was on a training ship, HMS Conway, in Liverpool. On 26 August 1911 he was issued with his certificate as Second Mate and in the following month joined the White Star Company, with whom he stayed until August 1913. As war broke out he joined the 12th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, however, and it was whilst serving as a Second Lieutenant that he married. His temporary place of residence was given as Balliol College, Oxford, and the marriage took place by licence at the church of St Mary Magdalene in Oxford, on 23 October. His bride was Gladys Herbert, and the couple went on to have a son and a daughter. During the 1920s they lived in Cheshire before returning to Warwickshire; by 1939 they lived at Cranford, Blackdown, Leamington Spa, and Arthur was a Sales Manager for the Rover Company.
Arthur survived his wife by twelve years, and retired to Jersey, from which he kept in touch with his friends at Stoneleigh. He died in 1974 aged 83, and was buried at Stoneleigh on 30 August.
Gladys Hollick was the eldest of the four daughters of the famous Coventry industrialist Sir Alfred Herbert and his wife Ellen nee Ryley. She was born on 9 July 1890 in Coventry, when the family lived in Grosvenor Road, and christened at Coventry Cathedral.. By 1911 they had moved to Kenilworth. At the time of her death on 26 September 1962, she and Arthur lived at Cranfield in Northumberland Road, Leamington. She left a large inherited fortune.