Molly Lonswaite

Molly Lonswaite (née Hewitt) was the daughter of Samuel and Gertie Hewitt and twin sister of Dolly Hewitt. Molly had five brothers and sisters from Samuel's previous marriage.

The Hewitt clan was among the worst hit by the Weatherfield TB epidemic; Samuel never lived to see the birth of the twins and Dolly, the last of the family afflicted with the illness, died after just three months.

Molly grew into a vivacious young woman who danced away the 1920s at the Alhambra Music Hall. The local men offered her nothing but in 1929 Artie Lonswaite, visiting from Canada, where he'd emigrated to in 1911, took her dancing and proposed all on the same evening. Molly accepted just as the clock struck midnight on New Year's Day 1930 and less than a month later Molly and Artie left the country. She returned just one after this - in 1938 she visited Flo and her husband Billy Chad and treated them to a lavish meal at the Imperial Hotel. Flo and Billy were so malnourished that they collapsed, and a horrified Molly insisted that they return to Canada with her. The Chads gave up the tenancy of 3 Coronation Street and left the country immediately.


 * Molly first appeared in Daran Little and Bill Hill's "Weatherfield Life", published in 1992. Other information is derived from Little's follow-up book, "Around the Coronation Street Houses".