OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
www.oldplymouth.uk
 

©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: June 18, 2021
Webpage updated: June 20, 2021

        

WHO WAS WHO IN OLD PLYMOUTH

EDWIN ELLIOTT FARLEY (1864-1949)

Edwin Elliott Farley was born in Plymouth in 1864 to Mr Samuel Farley, a baker, and his wife, Ann, formerly Miss Ann Steer.

When his father died suddenly on Thursday July 14th 1870, the business was left in the hands of his mother, Mrs Ann Farley (1820-1901) assisted by his older brother, Mr James Steer Farley (1854-0000).  It was sometime before 1878 that a Doctor William Penn Hele Eales asked Mrs Ann Farley to bake him some special infant cereal biscuits he had created.  Apparently other bakers were also baking them but while their's were white those produced by Mrs Farley were golden brown.

Sometime between the census of April 3rd 1881 and that of April 5th 1891 Mr James Steer Farley emigrated and his younger brother, 27-years-old Edwin Elliott Farley, left teaching to assist his mother.  They also acquired the assistance of a relative from Falmouth, Cornwall, Miss Ernestine Jane Morley.  All three of them were listed in 1891 as bakers and confectioners.  Mr Edwin Elliott Farley married Miss Ernestine Jane Morley at Plymouth's Charles; Church on September 9th 1891.  In addition to baking their own bread and cakes, they used to take in cakes mixed by others at home in their own tins and also cooked Sunday roast dinners, both for two pennies a time.

Mrs Farley was in her seventies in 1891and sometime soon after her son got married she retired and handed the business over to him and his wife.  Between 1895 and 1898 the couple had had three sons and one daughter.  Mrs Ann Farley died on Tuesday September 17th 1901.

The census taken on Sunday April 2nd 1911 shows that the family had expanded.  The first group of children, Reginald Elliott Farley, born 1894; Vera Ernestine Farley, born 1895; Percy John Farley, born 1896; and Edwin James Farley, born 1898; had been joined by Dora May Farley, born 1902; Hilda Farley, born 1905; and Leslie Norman Farley, born 1906.  15-years-old Percy John Farley was a baker and confectioner like his parents and 16-years-old Vera Ernestine Farley was assisting them in the shop.  Reginald Elliott Farley, then 17-years-old, had decided to become a clerk with a timber firm while the remaining youngsters were all at school.

There is a story that Mr Edwin Elliott Farley told his father that: 'Prospects are brighter and you will not have to work so hard in Canada'.  This story is a bit puzzling because Edwin was only five years old when his father died and it is very doubtful that he would have even known this unless his older brother, James Steer Farley, had written home and said so.  It is more likely that is was he who had said this in the first place, before he emigrated.  Whatever the truth, it seems that Edwin was unhappy in Plymouth and was enticed by the perceived opportunities in Canada.  He decided therefore to follow his brother. 

Before he left he offered the secret recipe for the rusks to another baker, Mr Solomon Stephens (1864-1950), for just £100 but he turned it down.  Instead it was purchased by Mr William Bolitho Trahair (1855-1934), who ran the Globe Stores at 58-59 Notte Street (Cookworthy's old home), where he sold proprietary lines such as Globe Metal Polish and John Master's Matches.

On March 23rd 1912 Mr Farley sailed from Bristol aboard the Royal Line Canadian Northern Steamships Limited vessel "Royal George" bound for Halifax, in Canada.  Curiously, Edwin was travelling alone: neither Ernestine nor any other children were with him, contrary to the official Farley's history of events.  Even more curiously, he had declared himself to be 'single'.

The future of the Farley rusk was now all down to Mr William Bolitho Trahair (1855-1934).

Despite the earlier conclusion that Edwin Farley's wife did not travel to Canada with him, she must have gone over at some point because Mrs Ernestine Jane Farley died in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1942 and  Mr Edwin Elliott Farley died there in 1949.