The youngest daughter of Holman the greenhanded of Hobbiton, Rose was born more than a hundred and fifty years before the War of the Ring. She was important as one of the founders of the Cotton family, though at the time of her marriage to a Hobbit named Cotman the family name did not yet exist. Their son was named Holman after his grandfather, but he later acquired the surname 'Cotton'.2 Through Holman, Rose was the great-grandmother of Rose Cotton the wife of Samwise Gamgee, and thus of all the famous Fairbairns and Gardners who descended from them.
Notes
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Though we aren't told specifically where Rose lived, her father was Holman the greenhanded of Hobbiton, so she presumably at least grew up there. After her marriage things are less clear; her husband Cotman was associated with a place named 'Cotton' (the origin of the family name), but whether Rose went there herself is unclear. We do know that their son Holman dwelt in Bywater but, again, we can't say for sure whether Rose herself was connected with that village.
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2 |
The name 'Cotton' comes from a translation of the village name Hlothran, a group of small dwellings on a hillside, but we're not told why it was given to Holman specifically. We know that he was associated with Bywater, so conceivably this is a reference to Bywater itself, but more likely it was the name of the place that Rose's husband Cotman came from, and thus Cotman's son became known in Bywater as 'Holman of Cotton', and ultimately just 'Holman Cotton'.
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- Updated 13 June 2016
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