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Wivenhoe families

Someone - and I've forgotten who it was - once said that the name Harvey was as common in Essex as the name Smith was in the rest of England. That's certainly how it feels.

My Harvey line has been traced back to the small coastal town of Brightlingsea, although my more recent Harveys lived a few miles up the River Colne in the village of Wivenhoe.

The Colneside towns and villages formed a close-knit community and individuals sometimes moved to the much larger town of Colchester. By 1900 almost everyone in Wivenhoe or Rowhedge (formally, East Donyland) was distantly related to everyone else. I've spent several years researching these relationship and the result is now online in the shape of a large database. If you are interested in Wivenhoe, Rowhedge, Fingringhoe or Brightlingsea families, please follow this link.

Thomas Harvey (1803-1885) - my great-great-grandfather - was a shipbuilder and developer in both Wivenhoe and Brightlingsea.

John Harvey (1833-1901) was Thomas's fifth son by his first wife. In his day he became a well-known designer of yachts. Follow this link for a partial list of his yachts.

Sarah Anna Goyder (1823-1909) was the elder sister of John Harvey's wife, Margaret, and the sister of the Surveyor General of South Australia, George Woodroffe Goyder.

John Martin Harvey (1863-1944) was John and Margaret Harvey's third child. He became a famous actor in his day and following his knighthood in 1921 adopted the name Sir John Martin-Harvey.

David Gwydir Harvey (1867-1919) John and Margaret Harvey's fifth child had a very different life from his famous brother, moving to San Francisco, marrying a pregnant fifteen-year-old and dying from syphilis. I've tried to piece his story together as a contrast with his brother's life.

John's and Gwy's younger brother, Charles, also moved to America in the late 1890s. Charles's son, John Harvey, was a leading scenery and lighting designer on the stage in the middle of the twentieth century.