Early Life

Joseph Raymond Holway Hewlett was born in Taunton, Somerset on 11 February 1891. His mother was Sarah Hewlett, nee Holway, from a prominent Cheltenham family, where Holway Street commemorates her father, a one-time mayor. Her wish was that all the male members of the family should bear the name of Holway. There were 10 children (fig 1a). Hewlett Snr broke his hip in late middle-age, and was confined to a type of perambulator, never walking or working again.

Fig 1a Sarah Hewlett and family in the summer of 1914, Ray on R. Cliff, L, was badly injured in the war in France, losing an eye. Chris, naval uniform, emigrated to Australia.
Fig 1a. Sarah Hewlett and family in the summer of 1914, Ray on R. Cliff, L, was badly injured in the war in France, losing an eye. Chris, naval uniform, emigrated to Australia.

The family home was an imposing red brick building (fig 1b) which was later sold for a large property called Mountway, on the outskirts of the town so there must have been comfortable finances.

Fig 1b. The family home in Taunton today. In earlier times it was possessed of a sizable garden, including an orchard.
Fig 1b. The family home in Taunton today. In earlier times it was possessed of a sizeable garden, including an orchard.

He attended Taunton Boys School where he excelled at swimming, but the Army must have been his boyhood interest, because a Statement of Services form dated March 1918, records that he enlisted in in the 1/1st West Somerset Yeomanry in 1909 at the age of eighteen, thereafter attending camps every year until the outbreak of war.