The hardest thing about family mysteries is finding out what the family thinks may not be true. The Harvey family have one of the most amazing stories, if true, it could become an epic. The story allegedly involves King Edward 7th, an untimely death, bankruptcy and orphans.
The story begins on the Isle of Wight during the 1860’s. This part of the family were doing very well, living on various farms around the island. The two main farms involved in this story are Merstone Farm and Adgestone Farm. The farms were owned by the brothers Richard and Alfred Harvey. Their father had died in 1854 leaving a large amount of money and the tenancy on the lucrative Merstone Farm owned at the time by Admiral Edward Hawker in his will. As can be seen in the will Richard was the main beneficiary. However, before his death he helped set up Alfred on a smaller farm near Brading in Adgestone.
The brothers, though older than the future king, were allegedly gallivanting around with him when the prince was staying at Osborne House with his mother Queen Victoria. The prince was a huge fan of horse racing and riding. They used to hunt together apparently. This fascination with horse racing led them to go to the races in France. At these races in 1861 they all lost a fortune.
The consequences of these losses proved to have different outcomes for each man. The prince was bailed out by his mother and sent to Ireland to join the Thirty Sixth Regiment of Foot (The Herefordshire Regiment) as a Colonel. This led to even more scandal with an actress and some think to the eventual death of his father the Prince Regent. Richard returned home and was able to somehow clear his debts. This led to the downfall of the farm and was said to be the beginning of the end of the Harvey reign at the profitable Merstone Farm.
The tragedy lay with Alfred. Alfred did not have the money to clear his name and
new that he would be made bankrupt. This was too much for him to bear and he allegedly
went mad, leading to him disappearing and eventually ending up in an asylum in Wickham,
Hampshire. This led to the farm being sold along with all its contents to clear
the debts. However, before the farm could be sold, Jane, the wife of Alfred took
ill and died after a two month illness. The death certificate showed the cause of
death to be Jaundice and Exhaustion. Jane was a member of a powerful family on the
Island at the time, namely the Baker family. Her sister, Caroline, had married
Alfred’s older brother John William Harvey and were running another lucrative farm,
Tapnell near Freshwater. On the day of the sale Caroline turned up and walked away
with the two portraits of her sister and brother-
With the farm sold to pay off their fathers gambling debts and their mother dead the four children, William, Henry, Clarissa and Alfred were left as orphans. They were taken in by their uncle Richard. Perhaps he felt some guilt into the loss of their mother and father?
There are so many leads to follow up to try and prove the truth or not of this story. The reason for writing this is to try and find out whether there is any truth in the story. As I have already said it is a bit of an epic and needs a lot of research. At present there is plenty of circumstantial evidence, but I think that is the same with most family myths. This one however is so fantastic there must be something in it?
The disappearance of Alfred is a mystery. I have been unable to find a record of his death or a record of which asylum he may have ended up in. This information may tie up one loose end. Maybe there is a list of debtors in the bankruptcy order if I could find it?
The link with the royal family may bring up some more circumstantial evidence if it is true that the brothers were socialising with the royals. There may be evidence of this and I am researching this intently but with little success as yet. I know that the hunt went over their land in the past but have no evidence of them actually taking part in the hunt. Whether any official functions were held that they may be on a list that still exists is still unknown to me, but I am researching this through newspapers and documents that I can find. It is relatively easy to find where the royals were at any particular time in history but it is very difficult to find any detail, other than conjecture.
When John Harvey, the brothers father died he left the equivalent of more than £250,000 in cash to his son Richard along with a very profitable farm. The money was there to make the lifestyle necessary to move in the right circles and the money definitely disappeared very quickly after the tragedy.
So the circumstantial evidence is there. The hard bit is going to be proving it. If anyone can add anything to the story it would be great, whether it be good or bad. I will add any evidence I find as and when it becomes available to me.