What's with the "Harbroe?"

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Once upon a time...

A long time ago, in 1753, there was a man called Thomas Harbroe who was a house painter in Dorking, Surrey, England (the old England, not the New).

In 1851 his grand-daughter Emma married a certain William Nicol Wright and by 1871 they had four daughters and three sons.

The second of these sons, born in 1863, was George Harbroe Wright, (still with me?). In 1884 he married the daughter of a farm labourer from Bower Chalke in Wiltshire. She was called Maria Lush, of 1858 vintage.

Between 1886 and 1901 they had seven sons and a daughter, the first of the sons being given the middle name of Harbroe. The last son to be born, in 1901, was my father. He didn't marry until 1942, lazy devil, and he and my mother were kind enough to wait until the end of the second world war before organising my appearance.

To continue the tradition I was also give the middle name Harbroe. All through school I hated it, as you do, and wasn't keen on it at my first and second jobs either. But maturity (around 33: we must all have Hobbit antecedents) persuaded me that it was really rather historic and unusual, and that it would he pleasantly eccentric to use it for our website.

Four questions -

• Are there any Harbroes from those Dorking roots still around?
• The early Wrights seem to have been quite well-to-do. How, then, did one of them manage to justify to his Victorian parents his marriage at Wilton, itself well-to-do, to the daughter of a farm labourer?
• What were the origins of William Nicol Wright? Wright is a common enough name to make the search difficult!
• What are next week's national lottery numbers?

Aren't you glad you visited this page? There are others more interesting! Try some of the photos.