David Gwydyr "Gwy" Harvey

1833

John Harvey, his father, was born in Wivenhoe on 11th January.

1835

Margaret Diana Mary Goyder, his mother, daughter of the Swedenborgian minister Rev. Dr. David George Goyder, as born in England.

1857

John Harvey and Margaret Goyder were married in the New Christian Church (Swedenborgian), Argyle Square, London.

1859

John and Margaret's first child, John, was born on 8th May.

He died six months later on 20th September.

1861

John and Margaret's second child, Edith Goyder, was born on 4th April. She died four years later.

1863

John and Margaret's third child, John Martin, known as "Jack", was born on 22nd June. He grew up to become the actor-manager Sir John Martin-Harvey.

1865

John and Margaret's fourth child, Mary Amelia Etherington, known as "May", was born on 17th August. She also joined the acting profession.

1865

Edith Goyder Harvey died on 17th November.

1867

John and Margaret's fifth child, David Gwydyr, known as "Gwy", was born on 1st July. His middle name makes reference to the Welsh origins of his mother's family. His uncle, Fred Harvey, used the name again for his son born in 1896.

1868

John and Margaret's sixth child, Florence Anna, was born on 16th April.

1869

Florence Anna Harvey died on 30th September.

1870

John and Margaret's seventh child, Charles Woodroffe, was born on 19th July. He grew up to become an architect and later moved to the USA and became a pastor of the Swedenborgian church.

1871

Margaret Diana Mary Harvey died on 2nd May and was buried on 6th May:

One morning at the house on the Quay we arranging some private theatricals. My nurse, breathless with running, bursts into the room, with a cry: "She is gone."

One more picture. The small drawing-room in "Rose Cottage", for some mysterious reason has been closed to us; but now my father unlocks the door and enters with his children clinging to him; and we are lifted up, one by one, to kiss for the last time the marble-cold lips of our mother. Then we kneel in selince for a moment, and that is all.

...

How could my father tend four small children? Once more we are all parted. My brother is packed off to relations in Northumberland, my sister to Colchester, my youngest brother to my grandfather's in Brightlingsea.

Margaret's widowed sister. Sarah Anna MacLachlan, returned from Australia. She was accompanied by her daughter Sarah Anna who died during the voyage and is buried at sea. Her name was added to the monument erected to Margaret. "Aunt Sarah" looked after John Harvey's children, eventually moving with Charles to the USA.

1872

Devastating fire at John Harvey's shipyard, Wivenhoe.

1878

Gwy joined his brother John for three terms at King's College School, London:

From Linton House my father decided I should go to King's College School with my brother; so our next move was to London, where we lived in a dull suburban house on Hornsey Rise.

Gwy joined HMS Worcester to train for either the Royal or Merchant Navy. The Incorporated Thames Nautical Training College's second HMS Worcester began life in 1833 as the 'Royal Sovereign'. A 4,725 ton line-of-battleship, converted to steam while still on the stocks at Portsmouth, she was moored on a permanent basis off Ingress Abbey at Greenhithe on the Thames in 1871.

Whether or not my foundering in the sea of Higher Mathematics decided my father in his next move I can only guess, but the family about this time (1878) returned once more to Wivenhoe and was installed in the old Quay House. My brother was packed off to Her Majesty's Training Ship "Worcester" (where his hammock was slung alonside that of a small Japanese boy who later become the gallant Admiral Togo*).

* "Admiral Heihachero Togo (1847-1934), father of the Japanese Imperial Navy, had spent three years in the 1870s on HMS Worcester the nautical training ship at Greenhithe, UK. At the end of his life Togo referred to England as his second Mother country. It was this admiral who commanded the Japanese navy, masterminding the annihilation of the Russian Baltic Fleet off the coast of Japan at the battle of Tsushima in 1907; a large part of the Japanese fleet had been built in British shipyards."

1881

In the census, David Gwydyr Harvey is shown as a cadet from Wivenhoe on HMS Worcester as Swanscomb, Kent.

1883

Gwy was in America and was visited there by his brother Jack, on tour with Sir Henry Irving's company:

I am to have $20 a week; out of which, by the way, I save £40 in the course of the tour and am able to send my brother who, sick of the sea, wishes to try fruit-farming, to California.

1890

Gwy married Cynthia Adelaide Cash, aged 16, in San Francisco.

1891

Gwy and Cynthia's son was born. Cynthia Harvey died.

1893

Gwy was visited by his brother Jack:

My wife and I had a merry time in 'Frisco, tempered by a little sadness on meeting my brother "Gwy" there. He had drifted into the city from the fruit-farming which he had tried in Sacramento and found wanting. His propects here were not very rosy...

1901

John Harvey died in Guy's Hospital, London on 6th May.

1906

Gwy lost his possessions in the San Francisco earthquake:

...and a further misfortune fell upon him when the old city was practically destroyed by the earthquake and he lost most of his small possessions.

1917

Gwy entered Agnews State Hospital on 6th August.

1919

David Gwydir Harvey died on 3 May at Agnews State Hospital, Santa Clara, California and was buried somewhere in Alameda County, California:

One brother, after training on H.M.S. Worcester, drifted out to Australia, and ultimately California, where he died.

1930

Mary Amelia Etherington Harvey died on 17th June.

1944

John Martin Harvey, now Sir John Martin-Harvey, died on 14 May.

1952

Charles Woodroffe Harvey died on 15th June.