hi heywood, libby9 and whiteout7, thanks very much for your interest, and for your help. i'll try to do a bit of untangling...
libby9, you're right about the 1861 census not showing Rennard Hollis - i got mixed up and should have said 1871. and i hadn't thought to wonder where he actually was in 1861.
the 1823 marriage you found of william mawson and anne reynard is pretty compelling - so that's presumably where the name comes in.
whiteout7, in the marriage record i found for lydia holles and william (aka rennard?) mawson, his surname was transcribed as manson.
after the entry for rennard hollis and his family in the 1881 census, i found nothing more until reference to a grave for a rennard hollis, d. 13 Jun 1903, Shipley, buried Windhill Cemetery. i'm going to concentrate on finding his whereabouts in 1891 and 1901.
given the fact that rennard died in 1903, i'm interested in his wife mary hollis nee townsley re-marrying mr hawksworth before that date.... bears further investigation i think.
i started this investigation with a man called rennard mawson, who was sometimes called william - i can see now it's more accurate to say that he was actually william, and he appeared once (1861 census) as rennard. i still wonder why but perhaps i'll never know....?
lydia hollis is my husband's 2nd great grand aunt, according to ancestry.co.uk, so you can see i am really going off at a tangent. sometimes a family just grabs you :-)
apologies for the bitty-ness of this message - trying to cover all aspects :-)
and again, many thanks for all your time...
