Image Ref : VAR06 0097.tif

'Ernest Pridham'

This is one of nine images from a photograph album that was handed in to the Oxfam shop in Totnes. An article in the Totnes Times (date unknown) tried unsuccessfully to trace the identities of those shown. However, very brief information on a few of them, together with research online, has enabled us to identify most of them and provided strong clues to the others. The change of name from ‘Prideaux’ (image VAR06 0090) to ‘Pridham’ arose when Susanna Rachel Prideaux married Charles Pridham. The three key images in the identification process were VAR06 0090, VAR06 0091 and VAR06 0096. Ernest Pridham was born in Plymouth in 1852, the youngest son of Charles Pridham and Susanna, and nephew of Lucy Prideaux (VAR06 0090). In 1871, he was living at Clifton, Bristol, with his parents, siblings and his father’s pupils. He married Marie Rachelle Rouget in Worcestershire in 1877. One of his daughters was ‘M A R P’ (image VAR06 0093). The couple also had a daughter, Caroline Lucy P. Pridham, born in Barton Regis in 1879. The family moved to New Zealand. Their son Ernest Charles Prideaux Pridham was born in Wellington in October 1881. (He died at Hawkes Bay, NZ, on 15 October 1955.) Ernest and his wife eventually returned, as evidenced in the 1921 Census. Ernest died at Whitstone House, Town Lane, Shepton Mallet, on 12 April 1927. His wife died in Surrey on 25 September 1937.