There are very few Haedickes in the UK so I knew it must be someone I was aware of!
I investigated this when my brother Paul "Doughnut" Haedicke died in 1998.
My other brother David "Gunko" Haedicke sucked out as much information as is he could
from the aged parents, but I have not managed to find out where Frederick Haedicke
and Fanny/Jenny nee Merseberg came from in Germany. Although there is geographically
a hot spot around Halle.**see note below Fritz/Frederick is like Dick/Richard. Fanny maybe the same thing for Francis. These guys all had millions of names.
My dad Kathleen's brother Douglas (deceased 2002) said that F&F spoke German at home
and lived in Abbey Road London fairly opulently (was one of the first people in central London to have a phone and always had servants. Another distant relative thought they had a sweet shop
in Bond Street but I cant confirm that.
What I CAN tell you for definite is that CRW's birth-mother was Rosa Collins a young (in teens) servant from Essex and I am pretty sure that she appears on one of the censuses. (Not confirmed but Dad thought she was Irish.) Jenny had no live births and Dad said she wore a wig, which indicates a degree of bad health in the ladyparts area. There is one very small piece of lined paper stating she gave the baby up in 1888. Though technically he was the bastard son not adopted. Frederick treated him as a bona fide son anyhow. CRW attended St Paul's School and studied at the bar, and had his own telephone number at his solicitors office by 1918. CRW only become aware of this when his father died.(?date) This does not sit well with the Bankruptcy mentioned above.
Maybe it was just the business that went down the pan in 1906.
CRW and Johanna Frieda Bertha Kurten married in 1914. (I have some info on the Kurtens)
** I have found another Haedicke in Bohemia, where Dr. Haedicke had a sanatorium. There was quite an artist colony in the summer season, in the 19th Century. This town has been part of Czechovslakia, Germany and Poland at different times making investigation difficult. (Now a Polish Ski Resort).
**I have found some Haedicke's who took up temporary residence in Somerset in the first part of the 19th Century who were outsourced to build a stretch of the Taunton Canal that ran through Kittisford and several children were born and registered at the estate church. It appears when their section of canal was finished they returned to Germany around Halle area.
** Haedicke is the Anglicised version. In Germany spelt Hadicke with an omlaut over the A., but I don't know how to do it on my keyboard.
OK? I am actually in Australia at the moment, but my brother David is in England for a few weeks and has a tin box with some hereditary stuff in it.
