Biography
The family identifies Mary Ellis as Mrs Wilson Hawes, writer and director of The Enchanted Rose, a South Norwood Red Cross fairy play in 1916. The surviving programme records her creative work and features several family members.
Original 1911 census evidence
The original 1911 return gives Mary Hawes’s birthplace as Bethnal Green, London. It contains conflicting widow/married entries and struck-through figures apparently reading 11 children born and 11 living. Her identification with Mary Ellis remains provisional; the figures are not adopted as a confirmed family total. Inspect the original return and house photograph →
Family
The family records name Mary Ellis as William Edward Wilson Hawes’s wife. It lists seven children; family testimony describes twelve children in total. These accounts have not yet been fully reconciled.
Possible census connection
The supplied 1911 Anerley household transcript includes Mary Hawes, a widow aged 59. Identification with Mary Ellis remains tentative; it is not treated here as an established birth date.
Facts and dates
- Name
- Mary Ellis Hawes
- Dates
- Dates not yet established
- Evidence
- Family records and family testimony
Dates not yet established
Family records
Dates and events recorded in the family records. Month-only dates may be registration periods. Where sources disagree, the differences are noted below.
Research note: The family records name William Edward Wilson Hawes’s wife Mary “Wilson” Fisher, born 5 December 1852 at Bethnal Green. This differs from Mary Ellis in other family records. Fisher has a separate provisional profile; her birth date is not assigned to Mary Ellis until the identification is resolved.
Documents & photographs

Mary Hawes, identified by Antony Greenfield as Walter Joseph William Hawes’s mother. This identification does not resolve the Ellis/Fisher maiden-surname discrepancy in the family records.
View original photograph →