Biography of Harvey Harding

Malcolm Smith's Family History Archive

Biography of

Harvey HARDING

[Ref. P.20]

Harvey Harding was born on 23 May 1844, the eighth child of eleven of John Harding and Mary Ann (née Cox). All Harvey's older siblings were born in Sidbury in Devon, but he and his younger siblings were born in Crawley near Winchester in Hampshire. He was baptised at Crawley on 30 June 1844, his surname being written as Harden.

The whereabouts of Harvey has not been found in the 1851 census although at that time his parents had gone back to Devon with his younger siblings and were living at Cor Hill above Sidmouth. His older brothers Thomas, George and Augustus had remained in Hampshire.

On 4 August 1858, Harvey was apprenticed for six years to John Webber of Sidmouth in the art of Bread and Biscuit Baking and Confectionery. Under the terms of the indenture, he was provided with food and lodging but his parents had to fund his clothing and washing and any doctors fees. The census of 1861 shows Harvey at the shop in Fore Street, Sidmouth.

Harvey would have completed his apprenticeship in 1864, and the census of 1871 shows him as a confectioner and living at 13 Parr Street, St.Sidwell, Exeter. Whilst in Exeter, he married Jessie Hugh on 27 September 1867, daughter of Charles Hugh, a tailor from Sidmouth, and Sarah née Otton. Their address was given as Paris Street. Their daughter, Jessie Minnia, was born at Exeter on 7 August 1874.

By 1880 Harvey and his family had migrated to London. That year his wife Jessie passed way and the same year he married Agnes Letitia Archbald at St.James church Holloway on 1 November. She was sixteen years his junior and he declared himself as bachelor on the marriage certificate. The census of 1881 shows the couple living at 4 Corbyn Street, Finsbury Park, Middlesex together with Harvey's daughter Jessie. Daughter Agnes Sophia Harding was born in Finsbury Park in 1881 but the family had moved to 6 Tennison Road in South Norwood when Annie Edith and Harvey Herman were born in 1883 and 1884 respectively.

The famly were living at 168 Wellfield Road, Streatham according to the 1891 census and the 1901 census shows them all still together living at 38 Eardley Road, Streatham, Surrey. They also had two lodgers, Walter Welch and Thomas Smith, both of whom were student schoolteachers, and both of whom later married daughters of Harvey; Walter married Jessie and Thomas married Agnes. Thomas and Agnes continued to live with the family after their marriage and he taught at St.Leonard's school in Mitcham Lane.

The census of 1911 shows Harvey and Agnes living alone at 92 Dahomey Road in Streatham but later they moved in with their daughter and son-in-law Agnes and Thomas at 189 Mitcham Lane. Harvey died here on 8 November 1924 aged 80 having suffered from senile decay. His wife Agnes survived until 1935.

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