Prosperity: Ephriam HARVEY

I’ve wracked my brains to write about this subject in the Ancestor Challenge.

Prosperity means being successful in material terms; flourishing financially. Something that could hardly be said of many of my ancestors who went from being ‘ag labs’ to labourers. From working in fields probably in clean air to the polluted air of London’s East End. So hardly prosperous, and I feel as though for the majority the shift from countryside to town was anything but.

My three times great grandparents had at least six possibly seven children. I descend from their second son Joshua, born in Wilby, Suffolk, England c1830. Ephriam, the sixth child, born 14 Feb 1840, my three times great uncle, was his brother.

So this is Ephraim’s story 

Along with their siblings, but not parents Ephriam age 1 and Joshua age 11 appear on the 1841 census. Ephriam is mistakenly called female. In the occupation column alongside Sara, the eldest at 15, is ‘Daughter of a B……..er’

This has generally been thought to have been ‘Daughter of a Baker’ as on both the 1861 and 1871 Ephraim’s occupation was Baker, and on his marriage banns to Elizabeth Read his occupation was confectioner. On the earlier 1851 census age eleven he was  living with his brother Charles, a baker, and his wife and described as scholar.

There is a curious change of occupation for Ephriam from baker to master builder between the 1871 and 1881 census, and further searching has failed to reveal why. Joshua’s occupation at the time of his marriage in 1860 was ‘Bricklayer’, and on his son’s birth certificate he calls himself a ‘tile maker’ so there is an association with the building trade.

On the 1881 census we find Ephriam aged 41, married to Elizabeth, living at 13 Northview, Heaton, Northumberland. Occupation Master Builder employing five men, and one servant. By the time of the 1891 census his occupation was retired builder. I wonder if his circumstances changed or if he just missed the building trade as he calls himself a builder on the 1901 and an employer.

Ephraim’s wife Elizabeth died    21 May 1918 age 73.

A year later Ephriam died in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1919 he left an estate of £44,723 1s 2d, just under one hundred thousand pounds in today’s NZD . He was indeed prosperous