Facebook #037 (Oct 2020)
A couple of weeks ago (post 35), I mentioned that my Gt Gt Grandfather, Henry Larard, married Fanny Mousley in Croydon in 1870. His mother was Harriett Little of the family who built and owned 24 Thames sailing barges, and whose nephew Ivo was a Flight Lieutenant on the ill-fated R38 airship (posts 15 and 17). Her mother was Rebecca Knight of the South London family described in post 33.
Fanny’s father was Thomas Moseley, a surgeon from Ellesmere, Shropshire (of a family rooted around Tamworth). He trained in London, and eventually moved to Croydon. I recently learned from the son of a Moseley, that it’s pronounced ‘Mouzley’, with the first three letters like ‘mouse’.
One of her brothers, William was a railway contractor, and I managed to piece together some of his history from multiple sources, which lined up with census records showing where he was living. He built the Ely and St Ives Railway, an extension to the Wolverhampton Tramways, the first phase of Derby Tramways, the extension of the (preserved) Bridport branch line down to the harbour, the (partly preserved) Skipton to Ilkley Railway, the Bourne to Saxby railway (including Toft Tunnel), the Weston-super-Mare branch and loop, and the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway! Another brother went to the USA and his descendants tell me that the family were railway pioneers over there too.
William’s son, Henry, worked for the Ottawa-Toronto Railroad. In fragile health during WWI, he became a full time naturalist. At his death in 1949, Henry Mousley had published 131 scientific articles in Canada, the United States, and England, including 32 on species of orchids he had discovered. ‘His contribution to knowledge of the flora of Quebec is especially remarkable when it comes to orchids in southern Quebec, where he studied their morphology, ecology, and distribution’. He left photos and specimens to national museums and universities in Canada.
Pictured:
- Derby Tramway c 1895 (Valentine postcard)
- Lobb Ghyll Viaduct on the Skipton-Ilkley Railway (TJBlackwell on Wikipedia)
- Amerorchis Rotundifolia, discovered by Henry Mousley
- The Cambria Inn, Ellesmere, opposite where Thomas and Rebecca may have lived (my photo, by chance)