Sarah Elizabeth, baptised at All Saints Church, Heathfield on 20th February 1820, was the second of nine children born to George Lovel Harmer and Elizabeth Barber. She was John Harmer’s older sister. You can read more about the family’s life in Heathfield here.
Moving to Brighton and marriage
Sarah Elizabeth does not appear in the 1841 census at the family home at Heathfield and was one of the first siblings to move to Brighton, at around the same time as John Harmer. She may well be the Sarah Harmer (20) who was sharing rooms or a room with Elizabeth Stone, also 20, at Western Buildings in the 1841 census (both women have their occupations listed as ‘fs’ or ‘female servant’). These dwellings were at what is now Sillwood Road.
Sarah Elizabeth was certainly living at Brighton by 6th February 1843 when she married John Wright (born 1802) at St. Nicholas Church, Brighton. I do not as yet know his trade, but he seems to have been a widower. It is possible that the couple already had an infant daughter together by this time; Sarah who was born in the Dec Q. of 1842. She seems to have been their only child.
John died on 23rd July 1845, aged 43.
Life after John Wright
In 1851’s census Sarah Elizabeth (31) and her daughter Sarah (9) were living at 21 Surrey Street near Brighton Station. They were sharing the small house with two other families, and widowed Sarah Elizabeth was working as a dressmaker. Sarah Elizabeth had a visitor on the night of the census; 30 year old unmarried Arthur Hemsley, a printer from the Sussex village of Ditchling.
By 1861’s census Sarah Elizabeth (40) was living at 9 Eastern Road, again sharing the house with another family. She was working as a laundress, and Sarah (20) was an ironer so they could have worked at the same establishment if they were not working from home. Sarah Elizabeth, who is still described as widowed, had had a son, Arthur G. Wright, who was four at that time and was born at Brighton. I have yet to find a record of his birth or any clues as to his father’s identity, although the most likely candidate is George Arthur Taylor Wright, born Sep Q 1856 at Brighton. I wonder who Mr. Taylor was?
In January 1863 Sarah Elizabeth was robbed of some items which she had loaned to Alice Bryant for use in her lodgings:
Death
A Sarah Elizabeth Wright died at Brighton in the Sep Q 1869. She was 49, which implies that she was our Sarah.
Children
Sarah Wright (Dec Q 1842 – ????)
Sarah seems absent from census returns after 1861. A Sarah Wright died in the Sep Q of 1914 at Brighton, aged 72, but this was not our Sarah.
Arthur / George (Taylor?) Wright (1856 – ????)
An Arthur Wright, 14, appears in the 1871 census. He was lodging with Henry Briggs (35), a gunner in the Royal Artillery, and his family. Henry was born in India, but his wife Mary Ann Briggs née Dawes (37) was born at Brighton as was his daughter Florence (1) – this was indeed where the couple had married in 1869. Briggs may have been stationed at the barracks in Brighton when he met Mary Ann. Dawes is a very old Brighton surname. I wonder if Mary Ann was a friend of Sarah or Sarah Ann and took Arthur in when Sarah died? It may not be a coincidence that Sarah’s great grandmother’s maiden name was Daws (without an ‘e’).
In 1881 a George Arthur Wright, 25, is recorded in the census as living at Tower Hamlets, Bromley St. Leonards. He was a labourer / bricklayer, born in Brighton around 1856. George had married his wife Elizabeth ‘Isabella’, born at Bromley in around 1857, in the same district (Poplar) in July Q 1878. After this I lose trace of them.
