The Prossors of Cashel, Portsea, Southampton, Wellingborough, Caistor, Manchester and Liverpool

Please see previous page for earlier history

HENRY PROSSOR (b Sept 30, 1841 in Southampton, d Feb 28, 1928, Liverpool) is my great grandfather. He appears to have played the life of a gentleman playboy, living to a large extent on his family's money, especially in his early years.

Henry married three times, to MIRIAM FAULKNER, EVA WORSTER, and LOUISA LAVINIA RICHARDSON, nee LLOYD (Louisa is my great grandmother). At various times, he worked as a clerk, a wine merchant, a sanitary inspector, a jeweller, a solicitor, and an accountant. His divorce petition from Miriam makes interesting reading.

Later in life, while working for a Liverpool solicitor, he acted for Bridget Hitler nee Dowling, in her divorce from Alois, who was Adolf Hitler's stepbrother. More information. He is also recorded in the London Gazette in 1912 as having been the liquidator for the Spieler Watch Company of Liverpool.

Henry married Miriam Faulkner (b1844) on July 28, 1861, in St Pancras, London. Miriam was the daughter of pawnbroker Joseph Falkner; her sister Ann was recorded in 1871 as living in Grand Parade, Brighton.

I have various items of correspondence written by Henry. Please let me know if copies would help your own research.

Henry and Miriam had four children:

HENRY CHARLES COTTON (b 1862, St Pancras). Henry lived at 47 Faraday Road, London in 1881. He married Margaret Louise Doane in Port Maitland, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1898, and is recorded on the 1900 census as living at 349 Dean Street, Brooklyn, Kings, NY. He is recorded on the 1910, 1915, 1920 and 1930 censuses as living at 565 45th Street, Brooklyn, NY. He was naturalised in 1911 in Brooklyn. Margaret died on Boxing Day, 1929 and is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York. Henry and Margaret had two children: Donald Kemp Prossor and Dorothy Prossor (b Oct 26, 1899, d July 31, 1900). Donald Kemp Prossor does have descendants in the NY area. The London Gazette makes mention of a Harold Kemp Prossor who ended WW1 as a British Army captain, having seen service in Salonika, then Panama. Is he a son of Henry Charles?

LOUIS ANTHONY (b Mar 1863, Pancras, London) Living in 1871 at 34 Grand Parade, Brighton, and in 1881 at 6 Montpellier Villas, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

PERCY GEORGE HOWARD (d in infancy, Sept 1864)

PERCY JOHN HOWARD (b Sept 1867, Brighton, and living there in 1871 and in Cheltenham in 1881.

Henry and Miriam divorced on July 28, 1868. It looks as though the marriage was in difficulty before the birth of the second Percy, as Miriam is living with her sister in Brighton when he is born just months before the divorce. Miriam remarried, to Samuel Tertius Ridley. More on Miriam.

In June 22 1869, Henry seems to have reached rock bottom when he was declared bankrupt. He may well have spent some time in Winchester jail. It is liekly he was discharged from bankruptcy in October 1869. The paperwork reveals that he was a wine merchant, which is perhaps how he met Eva Worster, whose father was in the same line of business.

Henry's second marriage was to EVA WORSTER (Feb 2, 1846, Northampton, d Dec 28, 1877). Eve was a singer/actress. She married Henry on Sept 12, 1870 in Southampton. Eve was the twin daughter of William Worster (1788-1866) and Mary Elizabeth Anne Ward (1825-1870); William was a wine and spirit merchant of Sheep Street, and, later, 7 Royal Terrace, Northampton. Eve's twin was Adam, and there is an enduring family story of how he and his brother-in-law, Henry Pollexfen of Lincolnshire (who married Adam and Eve's sister, Annie) went to the USA and fought/worked as civil engineers in the US civil war. To date, we have found no record of the pair in the USA.

Henry and Eva had two daughters:

EVA MARIAN aka EFFIE (b Nov 12, 1872, Wellingborough, d Sept 25, 1927, Provo, Utah, USA, buried Los Angeles) Married Walter Edwin Hill in Manchester in 1892 and became a Mormon in 1898, before emigrating to the USA.

MABEL ETHEL (b Oct 12, 1873, Caistor, Lincolnshire, d Oct 11, 1907, York). Mabel married Alfred Ernest Bramley in Jun 1896 in York, Yorkshire. They had two children, Ada May and Ernest Wilfred. If you are a descendant, please contact me.

It appears that Effie and Mabel were fostered following their mother's death, and are said to have been placed with a friend (former servant?) of the Prossor family in York. There is certainly a previous link with York (see Henry and Miriam's divorce document). It appears that Henry, once settled, took Effie back: certainly by 1881 she was living in Manchester. Poor Mabel, meanwhile, is left with her foster parents; in an effort to trace Henry, she places a large story in the York Evening Press where it is clear she believes Henry is well-to-do, and possibly aristocracy. Somehow, she manages to contact Eva, then Henry and his new wife Louisa. She never meets them, however, and dies of typhoid fever.

The circumstances of Eve Worster's death are a mystery. To date, we don't know whether Henry was cruel to her, too, and she left him, or if she had some sort of mental illness, perhaps post-natal depression of grief at the 1874 death of her twin. For many years we were unable to trace her death, and a family story that she had gone to France may still prove correct. However, the most likely theory to date is that she died in Lambeth Workhouse, London, in December 1877, apparently unloved and ignored.

Henry's love letters to Eva
More information on Adam Worster.
Mabel's letters as she tries to trace her parents
TheWeymouth yacht, Windhover

Following Eve's death, in 1876 Henry married LOUISA LAVINIA RICHARDSON nee LLOYD (b Feb 13, 1849, d Nov 15 1921), my great grandmother. They lived at Hulme, Manchester, in 1881 and by 1891 were living at 111 Albert Edward Road, West Derby, Liverpool. They later moved to 32 Kensington, Liverpool, where Louisa ran a lodging house; it appears that Henry and Louisa were estranged at this point; he refers in a letter to "my current wretched connection" while my father recalls him living upstairs, separately. Louisa's will, however, urges her children to continue to care for their father.

Census returns are obscure about Louisa's birthplace, and it is given as Wrockwardine, Telford; and Bilston. In letters after her death, her daughter, Marie, says she came from Lea. She did , in fact, come from Wrockwardine, and was baptised there, but it is clear her family travelled a lot, probably in search of work. See the Lloyd family pages for more details.

Henry and Louisa had six children:

LLOYD HENRY PROSSOR aka HARRY (b Oct 14, 1879, Manchester). It is thought that Harry was injured in the First World War and was reduced to poverty. He used to call on the family to be given food, but was not allowed over the threshold.

EMILY

HERBERT (b1881, Manchester)

FRANK (b 1883, Manchester)

CHARLES EARNEST (founded Prossor and Co, outfitters, of Liverpool. Descendants still involved with company).

MARIE (b 1890, died Jan 1953) My grandmother. Married WILLIAM JOHN BRAMHILL on Boxing Day 1911 but the marriage ended in separation. After William's death in 1922, she married LEONARD KYLE CAIRNS.

Marie and William had two children:

WILLIAM FRANK BRAMHILL (1913-1997). Please see Bramhill family web pages.

DORIS BRAMHILL (1915-2003). Doris married Will Owens and had four children: David, Dorothy, Lynne and Sheila. They and their descendants live in Lancashire and Suffolk.

Marie and Leonard had two children:

IRIS CAIRNS (b 1923, died in infancy)

THYRA MAIE CAIRNS (b 1925, d 2002). Thyra married Bryan McCarroll and lived in Blackpool, Cambridge, Southport, Teignmouth and Sinfin, Derbys. They had two daughters Nina (d 1985) and Sara. Sara and husband Nick have two children, and a grandson.