The County of Essex is included in our research because it was here that the Harvey family had their origins. Mary Ann Harvey,
who was born in Wivenhoe, Essex, in 1849, emigrated to Australia, where
she married Charles Lawford Chessell. One of their five children,
Louisa Mary Chessell, married William Powell, my grandmother's brother;
and another of their offspring - their youngest son, David Lawford
Chessell - married my father's sister, Annie Davies. So Mary Ann Harvey
has a special place in our family history, bringing together, as
she did the Powell and Davies familes, and in the process becomiung a
grandmother to descendants of both family lines.
We know from the Website of Ray Harvey,
that the Harveys of Essex were a ship-building family. Ray traces Mary
Ann Harvey's line back to 1560 in Brightlingsea, next to Wivenhoe.
It is interesting to note that Mary Ann Harvey's father-in-law, Charles
Bartholomew Chessell, also a ship-builder, spent several years in
Tasmania, in partnership with a certain William Harvey, with whom he
built several ships before establishing his own shipyard in Melbourne.
No connection has yet been established between the Essex Harvey family
and this William Harvey, but it seems highly likely that his origins
were in Essex too.
