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Sir John Martin-Harvey

Sir John Martin-Harvey was born John Martin Harvey on 22nd June 1863.

His father was John Harvey (1833-1901), a successful designer and builder of yachts in the Essex riverside village of Wivenhoe. His grandfather, Thomas Harvey (1803-1885) was another successful shipbuilder before him.

John's mother, Margaret Diana Mary Harvey (1835-1871) was the daughter of the New Church minister Dr David George Goyder (1796-1878).

Pictured above is the young John (or, Jack, as he was known). Aged between two and three, he was photographed in Penzance, Cornwall. His mother suffered from tuberculosis and the family travelled the country in search of relief for her illness. One of these visits was to Penzance.

The Only Way

Sir John's biggest success was his play The Only Way which was first produced at the Lyceum Theatre, London, in 1899. It was adapted from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and Sir John played the lead role of Sydney Carton.

His wife, known as Miss N. da Silva played the role of the seamstress, Mimi. The music for the play was written by Hamilton Clarke, including the entr'acte entitled Mimi.

Read more about him

As well as this single summary page, there is (or will be) a more comprehensive set of pages.

Hear his voice

Another success of his, later in life, was Maurice Maeterlinck's play The Burgomaster of Stilemonde, in which he played the burgomaster himself. In this 1933 recording, the part of Isabelle is played by Lady Martin-Harvey. (This is an mp3 file which you may be able to listen to online, or download and then listen to).

Sir John suggested to the writer Laurence Binyon the idea for his play "Arthur" which had music written by Sir Edward Elgar.

Sir John was knighted in 1921 at which point he added the hyphen to his name. He died in 1944.

My link with Sir John is through my maternal grandmother, Fred Harvey. He was the son of Thomas Harvey and his second wife, Sophia Griggs, while Sir John was Thomas Harvey's grandson.

© Chris Goddard, 27 November, 2004