The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd

It was written in 1911 and the revised version was published in 1914 by Duckworth & Co. in London and Mitchell Kennerley in New York.

[1] Mrs. Holroyd is married to a loutish miner, who drinks, patronizes prostitutes, and apparently brutalizes her.

When Charles Holroyd's body is brought home from the mine, and his wife and mother must wash him and lay him out for his funeral, we see for the first time the other side of the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Holroyd—now, when it's too late.

Even though his uncle had been killed in a pit accident before Lawrence was born, the story would be told often in the family.

Holroyd' was in fact his aunt Polly, who "lived in a tiny cottage just up the line from the railway crossing at Brinsley, near Eastwood.