Facebook #035 (Sep 2020)
So, a couple of weeks ago (post 32), I mentioned that the Larard family had been involved in woolcombing and silk weaving, characteristic of the Huguenot and Walloon refugees of the time. Edward (1762) had moved to Hull, and his son Thomas had started a watchmaking business there in 1812. This occupation is also characteristic, and it is known that fathers sometimes funded the apprenticeships of their sons. I described the Hull business but didn’t mention that Alfred, brother of Alderman Frederick of Hull, had emigrated to Australia, taking the trade to the centre of Melbourne. The family business made goldfield jewellery (pictured), and even branched out in to bicycles (his advertisement pictured).
Back in England, Edward’s brother was Timothy (1739), a silk dyer. His son Francis (1777) moved to London at the time the silk trade was booming there. By 1818, he was a boot maker in Clerkenwell (where my Dad worked for a while in the 1970s, as did I – briefly – in the 1980s). The Old Bailey records show that someone stole a pair of boots from a nail outside the shop: Francis gave chase and apprehended the felon on Clerkenwell Green. Francis and his wife Elizabeth were married at St Giles, Cripplegate (see my photo) and are buried in the famous Highgate Cemetery, leaving significant bequests.
Clerkenwell (see my photo of contemporary Session House) was big in the watch trade and I suppose Francis paid for his son James (1810) to learn the trade, as his first cousin (once removed, so a generation older) in Hull had a generation earlier.
James married Harriett Little, and they lived near Vauxhall bridge with seven children. In 1868, James, at least, was in Canada, having emigrated on the SS Bellona.
JAMES LARARD from London, England. At King Street, Oshawa.
IMPORTER AND MANUFACTURER OF CLOCKS, WATCHES AND JEWELRY
London made Lever Watches of the Best workmanship, IN GOLD AND SILVER CASES. 18 & 22 Carat Gold Wedding Rings and Keepers. London made Gold Chains, Alberts, Lockets, Brooches, Earrings, Scarf Pins, &co. Extensive assortment of Spectacles and Eye Glasses, also Colored Glasses. A large stock of Double Crystal Watch Glasses, first imported into Canada. French and American Clocks. Every Description of Chronometers, Duplex Lever and Verge Watches repaired in a superior manner.
The Public are Invited to Inspect the $20 Lever Watch, in Stout Sterling Silver Cases, the Cheapest Watch in Canada.
After a few years, James returned to South London – to the genteel suburb of Brixton. Of the sons, Francis was a watchmaker, who emigrated to a gold prospecting town in New South Wales; Henry carried on the clock and watchmaking business in South London. Reginald was a cabinet maker, and then a chemist. He emigrated to Australia and sold ‘Oogar Dang Water’, which later morphed into the well-known Kirk’s brand. By 1900, he was a gold prospector in Cue, Western Australia (the centre of the Murchison goldfields and the terminus of the railway from Perth.). Sidney travelled the world with the merchant navy, then came home and lodged with his brother Henry, and then emigrated with his brother Reg. He had been a banker, a leading light of the Chamber of Commerce, and Secretary of the Brisbane Club, excelling at tennis and golf.
There is a lot more about this family, their trades and localities, and their English and Australian descendants, on the blog. There was a shocking accident in 1893 where three lads, including Sidney’s son George, were playing on a riverbank, looking at the remains of the Indooroopilly Bridge, which had been washed away in floods a few days earlier. They got into trouble: someone managed to rescue George with a rope; the others were lost. Such are the twists of fate.
So Henry (1841) was the son who stayed at home. He married Fanny Mousley at St John’s Church, Croydon in 1870 (see my photo). This was 101 years before my parents moved me to the same town, in blissful ignorance that our ‘midlands’ family had South London roots. I’m pleased to say that there is an example of a Larard clock in the family (pictured).
Henry and Fanny had one child, Ernest, who – like his grandfather and his uncles before him, emigrated to try to better himself – this time to the USA. Like his grandfather, he returned to Britain – but to the Birmingham area, where his daughter married into the Wheaver family.
One of Ernest’s sons, (another Francis/Frank), was posted to Australia in the War (I think) and wrote home that he had seen a jeweller (in Perth?), sporting the same coat of arms as his own! Many years later, one of Frank’s children emigrated to Australia with her family, a fourth generation of globe trotters.