Facebook post #040 (Nov 2020)
There are dozens more stories in the Larard quarter of my old-fashioned blog. Servants in illustrious households, working people whose paths crossed with the famous or who travelled the world, wealthy relatives who bought mansions of their own (pictured is Ladywood, Orpington – home of Henry Larard’s cousin, George Burrows). I even found a picture postcard on eBay sent by cousin Ruby Seymour to her daughter from Brighton in 1914.
One cousin on the Mousley side, Florence Bezer, married a gas fittings dealer in 1891, and they stayed in a lodging house in Holborn. It didn’t end well – Albert Flurscheim was German, and died in Utrecht in 1917. His family are interesting though. One of his first cousins was a prominent economist who turned around an important ironworks in Germany, built a railroad in Mexico, and died of depression when the Titanic sank. The other was Hermann Adolph Flurscheim, who emigrated to New York in the 1870s. He made his fortune, and is known to have helped victims of the Titanic disaster. His Fifth Avenue department store (pictured) apparently changed the face of retailing. Outlet stores and evening opening were amongst his innovations.
