Purvis Farquhar » (1853-1909)

Personal data  

• He was born on November 29, 1853 in Singapore.
• He was baptized on December 18, 1853 in Singapore.

  St Andrew's Cathedral Register, Singapore: B. Fitzgerald-Moore notes.

• He died in the year 1909, he was 55 years old.
• A child of Alfred George Farquhar Bernard and Elisabeth Antoinette Moore

Household of

Notes about

Born on his father's estate, Woodleigh, near Singapore. Sent to England to school at the age of 3. He was 6 before he saw his mother again, when she came to London and stayed for the birth of his s
ister, Esther. Never saw his father again. Very unhappy childhood. Left, with his two older brothers, in the charge of a widow, a Mrs Woodward, who lived in Ladbroke Grove near St John's Church, Lond
on. Went to a succession of schools including The Merchant Taylors School, where there is a record of his attendance: "Bernard, Henry Meyners - born 29.11.53 - son of Alfred, G.F. (Merchant) and Eliz
abeth Antoinette of Singapore - CC Cambridge B.A. 76 - Assistant Chaplain at Moscow 1882. Also attended Carey's boarding school at Carshalton in Surrey, and Shapcott's in Notting Hill.

Una Sait:
"All his life Harry, who was to be my father, remembered his utter misery as a child; his desolate loneliness and his terror of the dark."

Won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridg
e. Towards the end of his second year his father wrote and upbraided him for extravagance - he refused to take any more money from his father, left Cambridge, and went abroad as a tutor. In Paris he c
ontinued his study of mathematics, while tutoring. He returned to Cambridge in the Spring of 1874 to attempt his Tripos, which, to his surprise, he passed easily. Graduated B.A. with Honours in Maths.

"The clergyman, Henry M. Bernard aslo had his sister out from England to keep house for him & there was plenty of fun & social intercourse among the British Colony." ........ "Maida Mirrielees
did not very long keep house for her brother before she became engaged to the Rev. Henry Barnard & they were married (in Vienna in November 1883). Esther Bernard naturally had to go back to her moth
er but she then became engaged to Allan." From: Lucy Hopper. Memories of her youth 1870-1893. Transcribed in March 2000 by her grandson, Charles Cazalet, with photographs added from the family archiv
es. 2nd edition 2003.

Married Maida Mirrilees (1853-1921) in Vienna.

The following information is from Harvey Pitcher's book 'Muir & Mirrielees. The Scottish Partnership that became a Ho
usehold Name in Russia'. (Swallow House Books, Cromer, Norfolk, 1994).

"Maida 'warmed at once to his high-minded socialism and unorthodox religious views, and also felt sorry for him: 'His child
hood had been such an unhappy one and his yourth, troubled by religious scruples, had left a tinge of melancholy'. By 1887 he had become disillusioned by religion and far more interested in biology, a
nd a year later he resigned the chaplaincy and left with his family for Jena to study under the famous proponent of evolutionary theory, Ernst Haeckel (pp 104-105).The moral earnestness of the Bernard
s clearly caused some amusement among the more worldly Muirs: 'I don't think they are keeping entirely to Spencerian principles with Una but Mr Bernard still firmly refuses to let her have dolls'. (p.
106). See pp 184 - 185 for a description of the Bernard's life following his resignation from the Moscow Chaplaincy. He wrote a book - The Scientific Basis of Socialism (1908). Died of Bright's dise
ase on 4.1.1909. (Wikipaedia: Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer used,
as diseases are now classified according to their more fully understood etiologies.) Second [Posthumuous) book: BERNARD, HENRY M. (1853-1909), Some Neglected Factors in Evolution: An Essay in Construc
tive Biology. Edited by Matilda Bernard. NY: Putnam's, 1911.

(Question? is 'Matilda' the daughter, 'Ida'?

"That Summer (1888) Harry & Maida Bernard left Moscow. Harry had decided to give
up the Church & to take up natural history & went to Germany to study zoology at Jena. The Russia Company therefore had to provide a new chaplain & Esther's cousin the Rev Frederick W. Wybergh appli
ed for the chaplaincy. He & his wife had been in India but wanted to get back to Europe as they had a boy of 11 and a little girl of 4, Edie. They arrived in Moscow in the middle of Audumn 1888. Their
boy, Fred, was being prepared for Felstead School, Essex, by his father." From: Lucy Hopper. Memories of her youth 1870-1893. Transcribed in March 2000 by her grandson, Charles Cazalet, with photog
raphs added from the family archives. 2nd edition 2003.

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