Laslett family history

William and Laura Laslett of Riga

William Henry Laslett was borm on 10 March 1858 at 24 Western Road, Brighton Sussex the first child of Richard Laslett, a master draper, and his wife Mary Ann Laslett née Hart (page 106).

Richard joined the firm of Burt, Bolton and Hayward and worked in the Baltic timber trade. He was based in Riga, then part of imperial Russia.

He married Laura Watson Renney on 3 February 1904. Laura was 34 at the time.

During WWI William had to stay on in Riga as Burt, Bolton and Hayward had timber in the rivers but he arranged in 1915 for his family to be moved to Helsinfors (Helsinki) where they stayed as a family for a year before before coming to Britain where they lived at Bedford. William stayed on in Russia and died there of a heart attack in June 1917.

His daughter Mary remembers an anecdote of William. William said that his father had such a violent temper that he, William, had vowed never to loose his, nor, as far as Mary knows, did he ever.

Family of William and Laura Laslett

Son

HENRY COLLIER RENNY - 5 December 1906 in Riga, Russia. Attended Fettes College and then went into a bank in London before joining the army in the 1920s, the Beds & Herts Regiment(?). He rose through the ranks and got into Sandhurst. He married before going out to India but there were no children of the marriage. Then came WWII and he was taken prisoner in France and spent the war years in prison in Germany. He left the Army with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After the war he went back to India until 1947 then worked in the U.K at various jobs. In 1950 he stood as Conservative candidate for Durham City narrowly loosing the seat. He then went out to Jamaica before returning to settle in Bromley in 1955. He lived at 46 Southborough Lane, Bickley.

He was killed in the late 1950s at Send Bends, just outside Guildford, on the London to Portsmouth road, when the car he was driving was involved in a colllision.

Daughters

MARY RENNY - born 11 October 1905 in Riga, Russia. Lives in Chichester, West Sussex (1989). Married name Williams.
LAURA ISOBEL (JILL) - born 5 December 1906 in Riga, Russia. Died 24 December 1988 and cremated at Bedford.