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Help needed with the history of the Churcher family from Bromley

A grandson needs help from Bromley residents with his family history research.

The young man to the top left of this Edwardian photo is Arthur John Churcher, who was born in 1882 to Arthur and Emma Churcher (nee Yarday).

Arthur Churcher from Bromley is top left. Who are the other three?
Arthur Churcher from Bromley is top left. Who are the other three?

His grandparents, John and Susannah Churcher (nee Andrews), were part of a well-known family of shoe and boot makers in Bromley.

One of John's brothers, Thomas Churcher, was to achieve notoriety as one of the suspects in the Bromley poisoning of 23-year-old school teacher Harriet Monckton in 1843.

Miss Monckton was discovered in a privy (toilet) behind the church where she worshipped.

She died by swallowing prussic acid and a post mortem revealed that she was six months pregnant.

As her death would have been almost instantaneous and as no bottle for the poison was found near her body, it was assumed she had been murdered.

Be that as it may, Arthur Churcher led a blameless life. He was orphaned aged just four, and brought up by his aunt and uncle, William and Francis Alwen, in Bromley.

As a young man he worked cleaning railway carriages and at this time lived with his cousin Annie Stock and her signalman husband Frederick Stock in Bromley.

He later moved to London, met and married Ada Mary Ann Addis in 1904 and then moved to South Wales.

Now his grandson, David Swidenbank, who lives in Nottage, Porthcawl, in Wales, is trying to identify the other three people in the photograph.

Offers of help to swidenbank@btopenworld.com

The tale of the murder has been turned into a novel by Elizabeth Haynes, called The Murder of Harriet Monckton and published by Myriad Editions.

Read more: All the latest news from Bexley and Bromley

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