goodness, you have been busy!
I am thrilled with you replies and there are some real clues there.
A bit of info on Alexander...
He was a fascinating character. He was born in the Liverpool poor house, a place that must have been worse than hell in 1888. His parents were unmarried.
He was "rescued" from the poor house by a man called Edwin Carter, a preacher. Alex appears in the next two cencuses with him.
At some point, he moves to London. I think he has delusions of grandeur as he adopts the name Harvey. He wasn't christened Harvey and he uses this name for the rest of his life as a first name. He also rents an address in Rugivny Gardens, which is pretty exclusive. I think he was determined to shake off his awful start in life.
He marries Ellen Cochrane, nee Wigley later on in his 40's. She is quite a well to do widow of a music hall star, and she was an actress herself.
On his marriage cert, he gives his address as Empire House, picadilly. You don't get much more highbrow than that.... but this is an office building and not accommodation. I think he worked there, not lived there, hence the delusions thing.
Anyhow, he must have made some money, but he lost it again as he was declared bankrupt in the 1920s. He did continue to live in a rather nice house in Fulham, and ended his days in a rather nice house in Surrey.
As for my theories on his parenting skills....!
He had no parents himself and was brought up by a preacher. There is nothing to suggest he was a kindly man. Alex let him die on his own in the poor house in Liverpool, so maybe there was no love lost between them.
Alex comes to London in his 20's and gets Lily pregnant. He must have stuck around for that 9 months as he was on the scene 6 months after the birth.
I think he arranged for Lily to have the baby at Annie Berry's house, then Lily cleared off. Annie has other babies in the house with no mothers in the 1911 census.
There must have been some reason why the birth was registered so late. All the other children in the house also were registered late. Annie maybe wanted to stay off the radar. Perhaps a condition of her taking on children is that someone else must register the birth 6 months later. Why??
Alex stayed in the background until Ken was a young teen. He must have paid Annie and he paid for Ken to attend public school, so we also know Alex was making money.
This is where is gets sad
Ken had a hideous childhood with Annie, he hated her. One day he was sent home from Whitgift and he never knew why. He was literally on the street, Annie didn't take him back in. Why? Because Alex went bankrupt. One day he was funding Ken, the next day it stopped.
What is really sad is that he didn't live far away in his nice house with his wife and step daughter. He could have taken Ken in, but he didn't. I think his wife didn't know about Ken and Alex didn't want to tell her.
So that was it. Alex never had parents and didn't know how to be one, and Ken didn't have parents and he too struggled to parent his own children, which is also very sad.
I do find it very hard to accept that Alex could pay and in some way take responsibility for many years, when many men would have done a runner, yet then rather callously, left Ken to his fate out on the street.
I am thrilled with the patent, thanks for that! I am sure it must be him, no other Alexander Harvey Lloyds seem to exist around that time. A powder puff, how bizarre! Do you know if I can find out any more about the patent?
He must have made a will, but I can't find it. Are there any clues on how to look for it? He died in 1942 aged only 56.
Thanks again and thanks for reading my little story! I am desperate to find out more about these two.