Mad ‘Jack’ Harmer 1821 - ????

From Sussex to New Jersey and Back Again

Being a humorous pamphlet to be recited and distributed at the

Harmer Family Reunion, Pennsylvania, August 2019.

© Anna Antoniou 2019 – https://johnharmer.org.uk

Greetings from England, Harmers and Harmer descendants!

Firstly I must confess that I am not one of your kin. But I do hope that my research into John

Harmer’s life is of interest to those attending this much anticipated reunion. I wish I could

have journeyed from the UK to be with you all.

My John Harmer is not famous – he doesn’t even command the level of interest as his

Heathfield relative Jonathan Harmer of terracotta grave topper fame. But in 1860s

Brighton, the seaside town where I was born and bred, he was a household name, being

known as ‘Mad Jack Harmer’ to be precise! Indeed, by August 1860 he was so infamous in

Sussex that the thronging crowds at Lewes Races split their attentions equally between John

and the world-famous pugilist Tom Sayers. So I thought it might be fun to share some

anecdotes about his eccentric personality with you all.

Whilst all of us genealogy nerds take great delight in confirming that our tree entries are

authentic, we also know the thrill of adding someone with a dramatic life or life event. John

amused me so much that I ended up creating a whole website about his exploits and his

tree, which you can find at johnharmer.org.uk. I dearly hope that descendants of John living

in America can be located, and connected with their English heritage, so please take a look

at my site and spread the word.

My interest in John began with researching the history of my street, which, it turns out, he

built. It forms part of the Wellington Estate, although that name is long forgotten – a project

commenced by John to build a mixture of villas and affordable housing on downland which

had historically been grazing pasture for sheep. I started out with census returns, old maps,

street directories, planning applications, and probate and land registry records, but when I

subscribed to the British Newspaper Archive a whole new world opened up. John was

cropping up in the Brighton Gazette almost weekly, for one chaotic reason or another, and I

quickly became hooked. Clippings from and full bibliographical references to the newspaper

articles cited in this talk can be found on my website, as can many more of John’s exploits

and my genealogical research into his siblings and descendants.

So – let us begin!

Getting to know someone posthumously who never made it into the history books is a

tough if not impossible task; we can build a picture of their life through a variety of sources,

but they rarely left behind diaries or letters. Finding clues about their personalities can be a

major challenge. With this John Harmer we have an exception, thanks largely to the local

press.

I am very grateful to Gill Price, UK Secretary of the Harmer Family Association, for verifying

my research into John’s Harmer line. John was a descendent of Richard Harmer of

Heathfield (1712 – 1792) and his wife Sarah Harmer née Dalloway (1716 – 1781) via his

grandmother, Elizabeth Harmer who passed in 1836.

Anyone who has researched the Heathfield Harmers will be aware that many children were

born out of wedlock in this small and isolated part of the Sussex weald during the 18th and

19th centuries. Records survive of multitudinous bastardy charges brought by Harmer

women against the fathers of their children, the modern equivalent of child maintenance

orders.

It would be easy to associate a certain romanticism with these crude facts; the notion of

rustic peasants having a roll in the hay at May Day and the community stoically managing

the consequences nine months later and for decades to come. But we do have to consider

the unpleasant certainty that some of these pregnancies resulted from less consensual

situations, or had life-changing consequences. This is especially poignant for us viz. Harmer

women who, stigmatised by their illegitimate children, no man subsequently wished to

marry.

John’s grandmother Elizabeth Harmer was one such lady. There is significant evidence to

suggest that the father of her only son George was George Lovell, a successful local farmer

who was unhappily married at the time of George’s conception. Ironically, he couldn’t have

married Elizabeth even if he wanted to. George Lovell and Elizabeth were born and died

within a year of each other, and never left their home village of Heathfield. How strange to

think that the three members of this potential ‘love triangle’ today lay buried inches apart in

the churchyard at All Saints, Heathfield! It does have something of a reversed Wuthering

Heights narrative about it, if we choose to look at it that way.

George the farmer looks to have played an active part in his bastard’s life including

influencing his career as a shoemaker. Goodness knows how his wife felt about that! In time

George Lovell Harmer married, and sired nine children including our John who was born in

1821. George was remembered in the will of both his mother and his uncle John Harmer,

which gained him the right to vote via an inherited freehold cottage.

The dynamics of this isolated part of the world must have been very similar to small-town

life today, with everyone knowing their neighbours’ histories, business and suspected

parentage. Career opportunities were limited, and an ‘ag lab’ life or that of a shoemaker did

not appeal to John. He wanted to break free, and set his sights on the bustling and

developing town of Brighton, quitting Heathfield when he was just 17.

Brighton c.1835 (c) Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

The coming of the railways, especially the line connecting Brighton with London, had led to

a massive boom in property development. The speed with which John improved his

circumstances was phenomenal; he was an incredibly motivated person, and quickly worked

his way up from a house labourer to a supplier of bricks and timber. Within five years he

had his own timber yard, and had forged a niche for himself, building up a large network of

contacts in the trade and supervising the erection of many of Brighton and Hove’s fine

houses. It was at this time that John dropped the middle name ‘Lovell’.

In 1841, when he was 20, John married Brightonian Mary Ann Downer, who would find

herself standing by her husband and his mad cap antics throughout 46 years of marriage.

John was illiterate at the time of their wedding, and signed the marriage register with an ‘X’.

Marriage entry for John Harmer and Mary Ann Downer 14th Nov 1841

It was imperative that John learned to read and write, however, and we know that he did so

from the many property conveyances which bear his signature. I wonder if Mary Ann taught

him?

Signature of John Harmer with wax seal circa 1855

John and Mary Ann had nine children together, eight of which survived to adulthood, and

John was a fiercely loyal and protective husband and father. If people owed him money his

most common accusation was that they had stolen his children’s inheritance, indicating that

his workaholic nature originated in part from the desire to build a good life for his family.

But John also seems to have been driven in other ways. A phrase which the courts and

newspapers frequently used to describe him was ‘excitable’. It is impossible to definitively

state what kind of neuroses John was afflicted by, but his erratic behaviour – especially

when he had been drinking heavily – does suggest that he could have been bipolar. He may

also have lived with adult ADHD, which is only today becoming recognised. John never

seemed to stop, and survived on very little sleep, often walking the clifftops at night

brooding and plotting. Many of his immediate relatives experienced episodes of ‘acute

mania’, and either committed suicide or were sent to the County Lunatic Asylum at

Haywards Heath, and there could have been a strain of hereditary mental illness in the mix

either down the Harmer or Lovell line.

This possibility – and alcoholism – aside, one cannot help observing that a lot of John’s

exploits were simply endeavours to amuse himself – and to see how much he could get

away with. In the days before TV and Netflix, John made his own entertainment, and kept

the town in thrall in the process. Curiously, when John moved to my part of Brighton and

was running the Race Hill Inn (yes, he had a career as a pub landlord as well as a successful

property developer!), he didn’t get into too much trouble, probably because he could stay

up in his own pub as late as he liked. When the mood took him, however, he would race his

horse the Jersey Maid at an alarming pace up and down the Lewes Road hallooing at

passers-by. John was rather addicted to riding fast, and if he were alive today would

doubtless own a sports car! On one occasion when the courts needed to serve a subpoena

on him ‘one of the County Court officers endeavoured to serve him in the street, but Mr.

Harmer rode so fast the officer could not overtake him!’ Similarly in 1859 we read that ‘John

Harmer, who has lately become rather notorious in connection with some cases at the

Brighton Police court, was summoned for evading the turnpike tolls at the Ringmer Gate’.

Knowing John he probably just jumped over it – and at high speed! John was also known to

bomb around town in a fly carriage with a fellow publican who was not adverse to speeding,

drink driving and knocking over pedestrians.

Around this time John batted for the Wellington Club – a local cricket team named for his

estate, and for 12 years he hosted Brighton’s May and September fairs on one of the fields

he had acquired. This was much to the disgust of the town commissioners, who considered

the fairs to be vulgar events which resulted in brawls, pregnant housemaids and general

debauchery. This merely made John even more determined to facilitate the annual fracas.

On one occasion in June 1859 the Brighton Gazette reported upon a ‘ “CURIOUS ACCIDENT”:

We are told that a man at a travelling circus, exhibiting in Mr. Harmer’s field on Tuesday

afternoon, put a number of boys on the elephant, and then told the animal to shake them

off; he did so, and the result was that an arm of one of the boys was broken.’ Who needs

rules and health and safety when your name is John Harmer???

Embracing his new-found middle-class existence, John joined the West Kent Yeomanry

Cavalry. This largely meant that he got to wear a rather dashing uniform, as illustrated

below, and play with guns.

Official military dress of the West Kent Yeomanry

Indeed, John’s interest in firearms extended to the invention of an early form of cap gun,

which he patented in June 1859. Thank goodness John is not known to have gone out armed

when not in service! We can probably put this down to one of the very few rules which

Mary Ann laid down for him, the other being not to come back half cut in the middle of the

night and wake the whole house up.

Simply put, John’s ethos was to work hard and play hard; I can imagine him raising a toast to

“Eat, drink and be merry – for tomorrow you may be dead!” He was never short of

company, and it has been evidenced that he was very popular, and a good mixer.

The biggest event in Brighton in those days was the political election, and 1859’s election

day provided just a little too much stimulation for John’s excitable nature. It was the

tradition at the time, as it still is now to a much lesser degree, for people who strongly

backed one particular candidate to drive electors to the polls. John embraced this idea with

enthusiasm; he got to gad about in a carriage for much of the day, being seen with well-

known figures and waving to the crowds, and to partake in the general atmosphere of

suspense and riotousness. He also consumed enough alcohol on that day to put the average

person in a coma or worse. Not a good idea at the best of times, and especially as John, by

his own admission, had not slept for nine nights previously.

Crowds outside Brighton Town Hall on Election Day 1841

John’s day started at 5.30am with gin and milk – this passing somehow for breakfast.

Throughout the morning and afternoon he drank neat gin, gin and spruce, and gin with

lemonade liberally, whilst driving 48 or so voters to the poll. During this time he was

cautioned by officials five times for his behaviour. Between 4.00pm and 7.00pm he drank

stout and smoked cigars in the committee room, dozing off with boredom from time to

time. After this he went on a pub crawl, taking in no less than six taverns, where he drank

even more gin. At the last, the Rising Sun, he ordered claret and champagne just before

midnight. When he was eventually ejected at chucking out time he attempted to regain

entry with a friend by breaking a window and clambering in. The police were called, and

John eventually left, wandering around town until 7am when he knew he could safely go

home with minimum chastisement.

The only known depiction of the Rising Sun, painted in 1824

The following day John had the nerve to press charges against the landlord of the Rising Sun

for serving alcohol after hours! This became a bit of a cause célèbre, as several prominent

townsmen had also been in the pub that night, including the bailiff of the County Court who

John accused of dragging him into the smoking room and forcing him to quaff wine against

his will! Then, when the teetotal barmaid swore that she never served John a drop after

midnight, John accused her of perjury! All this nonsense in turn led to John himself being

charged with perjury, and for making the whole thing up (although he did admit trying to

climb in through the window and getting stuck).

During these court appearances John was in his element, and local journalists recorded his

every word - often phonetically. This is how we learn that like all good rural Heathfield

Harmers John dropped his ‘aitches. Conversely he dressed in cords and top boots, cutting

quite the handsome figure. I must admit that although I have never seen a photograph of

John, I do visualise him somewhat as Ross Poldark subsequently!

John also referred to some of the solicitors as sounding like they had swallowed a

dictionary, and as being overly ‘fisshus’ in their attitudes. I just love the way he was able to

parody himself as a peasant, knowing that he had made and had more money than most of

the people present – including those from ‘old money’.

After nine traders from the town and thereabouts testified to John’s good character, he was

eventually found not guilty. The verdict was met with loud cheers by the packed courtroom.

No one, it seemed, could bring John down – except perhaps himself.

Amidst all this craziness John was still building houses and working his butt off, as my friends

across the pond would say! And not just in Sussex. Sometimes John had reason to stay in

London on business, and on one of these occasions, a Thursday morning in April 1860, he

received a telegram from Mary Ann informing him that a timber merchant named Austin

had called at their home requesting that John settle his account of £27 and was returning

the next day. In all likelihood this is all the message said, but it sent John into a frenzy. He

cut his trip short and got the first train back to Brighton, making straight for where he knew

Austin would be – the weekly market at the King and Queen public house. Bumping into his

old adversary, the public prosecutor, en route he openly informed him that he was “obliged

to insult someone at the market”. This was where all the movers and shakers of Brighton

met to trade corn and building materials and to conduct property deals, and the room was

packed.

John proceeded to jump onto a table, and deliver a furious speech to the company present,

accusing Austin of grossly insulting Mary Ann. He then leapt down, and jumped up and

down on Austin’s toes, before spitting in his face.

A warrant was issued the next day for John’s arrest, but when the court officers called at his

home they were out of luck. According to the papers, the last heard of John was that he was

at nearby Shoreham over-night, fighting with a fly man, and was now gone out of town to

play a game of skittles! John had indeed been at Shoreham, tearing up the town on another

of his indefatigable pub crawls, and breaking the windows of those inns which had shut for

the night.

John’s whereabouts between his witching hour raging at Shoreham and his arrest 24 hours

later in Brighton are lost to history. He was eventually picked up by the police late on Friday

night walking the cliffs, very lame and with a severely bruised left eye. He was held in the

cells overnight, and the case was heard the following morning. A somewhat dejected John

requested that Mary Ann be called to court as a witness, but this was denied as she could

not testify against her husband if questioned by the prosecution – something which would

not happen today in the UK.

John was found guilty and bound over to keep the peace, with a £100 surety to be put up by

himself, and two friends to stand sureties of £50 each. No one came forward, and John was

taken down – facing six months in prison. Two old friends predictably did turn up with the

money and John was released, but a few days later he was behaving so irrationally that his

friends rescinded their sureties. John, unable to let the matter lie, had approached Austin

once more at the market, and asked if he wanted his face spat in again, for ‘he would soon

do it’. Fortunately for John two other friends put up £50 each, one of whom being his

sister’s husband, and he was again released.

The following Sunday morning at about 1.30 am John was at the end of the street where I

live today, causing a rumpus which must have woken up half the neighbourhood! John and

two builder friends of his had been out drinking and as usual did not want the night to end.

They therefore decided to bang on the door of the Admiral Nelson public house and

demand entry. When the landlord shouted from the bedroom window telling him them in

no uncertain terms to ‘go home’, John shouted back “If you don’t come down, I’ll kick the

bloody door down!”, which he proceeded to do. The landlord found John in the passageway,

demanding a bottle of champagne. When he was refused, John altered his request to half a

dozen of the same, and after being refused again blew the landlord’s candle out.

When the case inevitably came to court John claimed that the only reason he wasn’t served

the champers was that the landlord was too cheap to stock it. To add insult to injury he

laconically sucked on an orange throughout the proceedings, and bombarded the landlord

with irrelevant questions to the irritation of the court and the great amusement of the

crowd. At one point John demanded to know of the officers whether he was ‘dealing with a

lot of shoemakers, or a Bench of honourable gentlemen.’ This is a curious remark for the

son of a shoemaker, descended from a line of Heathfield shoemakers. John’s stated reason

for being in that part of town so late at night was that he was debt collecting, which may

well have been true. He certainly rambled quite a bit about the £30,000 he had expended

on the Wellington Estate by that point, and was in the process of disposing of all his

property there in advance of moving to America.

The stress of all this was clearly taking its toll, as throughout April 1860 John was attending

court daily even when he had no case of his own, apparently simply to provoke the

magistrates. He produced sovereigns from his pocket and paid fines for complete strangers,

interrupted hearings, and demanded that warrants were issued for four men he had got into

a scrape with at the Lord Nelson. I sometimes stop by at this olde-world pub, which is still

open today, and imagine John getting forcefully ejected for causing a scene. The fight in

question seems to have started over a servant of John’s by the name of Starley refusing to

hand over some keys, and John lost a watch and chain in the scuffle.

When the magistrates retired to consider his request, John amused the courtroom by

launching into a diatribe, in which he claimed to speak all the languages of the land, to have

been in all the colonies round about (the closest this comes to the truth is the seven years

which Jonathan Harmer of Heathfield had spent in New York), and that it was his punctuality

and perseverance which had put him in the proud position he then occupied. He alluded to

himself as having often shone in “public print”, referred to himself as “Young England” (an

obscure political reference) and “Jack Shephard the second” – Shephard being a then

famous jail-breaker. John also informed his listeners that he had once spent a fortnight in a

straightjacket, and that he should have been a lamb if he had not been made a lion. Clearly

working the crowd, he concluded energetically that there were ten acts in the piece, and

one act was not half over yet. It had been a farce, but he was damned if he didn’t make it a

pantomime. John then left the building, but 15 minutes later was back, having been taken in

charge by the police upon leaving the court. It is notable that the police officer in question

did so reluctantly for the public good, and when cross-examined by John stated that he

regretted having to do it, and had been remonstrating with him for days to calm down –

having known John personally for five years. John’s retort was to ask “Have you ever known

anyone as larkish as me, and to drink so much?”

Two surgeons were called for to ‘examine him as to the state of his mind’. The first, Mr.

Tatham, concluded that John had ‘abandoned himself to intemperate habits, and his brain

was in an excited state in consequence. He had had haemorrhage of the lungs that day, and

would, no doubt, have another if his excitement continued. He thought he was temporarily

deranged; but in time, when the effects of the excitement had passed off, he would be sane

enough’. He was ‘excessively ill, and though he threw up a half-pint of blood on Sunday he

was not in bed all the night.’ The second doctor, George Lowdell, who had attended John

for 17 years, described him as “one of the cleverest men in Brighton and one of the biggest

fools, too”, which made the court and John laugh. Lowdell also mentioned that one of

John’s lungs had been terribly diseased the whole time he had known him, and that it was a

wonder to all medical men that he had lived to his present age – which was 39. Lowdell also

informed the court that he had previously treated John for his ‘excitement’. Could this have

involved the straightjacket which John referred to in his ravings?

John’s wife Mary Ann was called to court, and spent half an hour in private conversation

with the surgeons and officials. Eventually it was agreed that John would be allowed to

return home, on the proviso that Mary Ann and Lowdell looked after him, and attempted to

control him. The assistant overseer of the court concluded ominously that ‘the kindest way

to deal with the case, if Mr. Harmer could not be controlled, would be for the two medical

gentlemen to sign a certificate and send him to some place where he would be under kind

treatment and control, – not to Haywards Heath but to some asylum in London’.

It is striking indeed just how lenient and supportive the officials were to John on this, and

pretty much every other occasion he appeared in court. Whilst John was a major land

developer he had no real political influence, and we can only conclude that it was his

loveable and engaging personality which saved him from the horrors of committal to a

Victorian lunatic asylum. It seems to have been generally accepted that if John would only

sleep more and drink less, he would be a perfectly fine to person to be around and no threat

to society. Everyone involved also seems to have been very worried lest John’s ‘excitement’

exacerbated his lung complaint, with fatal consequences. This 1860s comprehension of the

workings of the lungs seems quite naïve in the present day. Was John suffering from

consumption? We will probably never know.

As we have learned, John got very animated around election time, and he outshone himself

at the Brighton election of July 1860. He had no sincere intention of standing as a

candidate, but having personal beefs with those who were standing, he engineered a parody

campaign of his own. According to the Brighton Gazette, at a riotous meeting at the Town

Hall a week before the election ‘a placard was held up, on which was printed “John Harmer,

Conservative for Brighton”, which created deafening cheers, and the eyes of the crowd

involuntarily turned to the door-way, expecting every moment to see that eccentric

character enter the room; but he did not put in an appearance.’ John’s cult of personality

seems to have attracted a lot of followers, who shared his anarchic, anti-establishment

sense of humour. On election day itself, When the Mayor asked if there were any other

nominated candidates to come forwards, loud cries of “Where is John Harmer?” and

“Harmer! Harmer!” rang out.

All the local newspapers, referring to John’s fans as ‘roughs’, reported sarcastically upon

‘the unceasing attempts of a number of non-electors, who seemed enthusiastic in the cause

of the well-known John Harmer. These ‘gentry’ […] kept parading the town “supporting” a

number of empty flys and cheering vociferously at every yard of their peregrinations’. At

the hustings, ‘a number of rabble, supporters and admirers of the notorious John Harmer,

made their way into the crowd and for some time stopped the proceedings. Two of them

bore a figure, dressed as a woman and wearing a hideous mask; others had boughs of trees,

others bills calling upon the electors to vote for Harmer, flags striped with various colours,

and so on. When they had performed various antics and had pretty much tired themselves

by crushing among the crowd, they became somewhat quiet and the business then

proceeded.’

During the polling itself John drove around the town, fantastically dressed and attended by

his “bodyguard”. According to the Brighton Guardian ‘By way of exciting the mob, John

Harmer and his motley group had a procession in the streets, Harmer himself being attired

in a most grotesque manner, and riding through the streets on a timber carriage, drawn by

two heavy cart horses, the mob shouting “Harmer forever,” whilst this eccentric man was

being drenched with rain, shouting at the top of his voice. In the course of the day he

appeared, we believe, in no less than five different costumes.’ John’s exuberance may have

had something to do with the £9 2s worth of champagne which he bought on credit to share

with his friends and the crowd – but forgot to pay for resulting in yet another court case! In

1860 it would take a skilled tradesman 45 days to earn that much money. In the same

month John won a wager for £36 worth of champagne that he could outdrink his

companions all night and still be up at the crack of dawn at an appointed place and time.

Funnily enough the wager took place at the Rising Sun where John had caused such drama

the previous summer – I suppose the landlord must have forgiven him like everyone else

seemed to!

It is highly likely that John’s popularity with the working classes stemmed from his ability to

send himself up. His strong Sussex brogue, his relatively poor upbringing, his modest but

self-made fortune and his reputation as a fair employer made him much easier to relate to

and even perhaps to desire to emulate than the landed gentry who governed the town at

the time. John’s nature inclined him to forgive people, not knock them down, unless they

posed a perceived threat to him or his family’s stability. On one occasion when a young boy

who he was allowing to sleep in his hayloft stole some lead, John claimed to not be able to

positively identify it as his. That was a pretty decent thing to do, as it could have resulted in

transportation to Australia. Similarly when his groom stole his West Kent Yeomanry

emblazoned coat, John forgave him as long as he promised not to do it again.

A couple of weeks after the elections John was in a less favourable mood, when he

discovered that some of the land he had sold in preparation for his emigration was being

marked out with posts – taking in part of an adjacent plot which he still owned. When the

workman in question carried on, after John had warned him that he would “rearrange his

mug”, John did precisely that, giving him a right hook and bashing him about with his own

hammer. He then sued the workman for assault!

On Saturday 4th August John’s temper got the better of him again, when three separate

bailiffs turned up on the same day to seize his goods. He had been illegally subletting a

patisserie, and the owner, having found out, had sued for costs a week earlier and wanted

him out. Apparently she had learned something of his reputation, and wanted nothing to do

with him. When John retorted that he didn’t give ‘a bloody haporth for all the lawyers since

and before Adam’s time’, resulting in the magistrate warning him to show some respect, he

replied with feigned bewilderment “But your honour – I am John Harmer!”, which caused

the packed court room to collapse in hysterics.

Brighton Guardian 16th May 1860

John had genuine intentions; his eldest daughter had married his clerk, and he wanted to be

able to leave for America knowing that they had a business to support them. In reality John

could have paid the various debtors easily enough, and still had several other properties in

Brighton in which he was storing his excess furniture. But he was prepared to let the bailiffs

take what they wanted from the patisserie for a quiet life. This was not to be! Especially

when they all arrived at once. As usual, John had the law eating out of his hand, in this case

the hand that punched its officer! To be fair to John, he did warn him in advance, “Don’t

excite me, or I’ll change the look of your mouth!” After John had backhanded him, the court

bailiff dutifully went to fetch him a half-pint of gin to calm him down. It DID go to court, but

whispered considerations amongst the magistrates about how poor John had been

subjected to so much annoyance that he ‘did not know perfectly well what he was doing at

the time’ resulted in a fine of just 20s.

Brighton became a much more boring place two months later, when John, Mary Ann and six

of their children set sail for the U.S. as planned. The steamer ship which carried them from

London to New York was the Plymouth Rock, a 335ft long vessel which was very beautifully

furnished, boasting ‘the finest beds, bedding, chandeliers, china, cut glass, and furniture

money could buy’ according to historian and author Blake A. Bell. It arrived safely at New

York on the 24th of October 1860, heralding a new life for the Harmer family.

The Plymouth Rock, bound for the New World

We don’t know why they left England; perhaps it was for the good of John’s lungs, or as a

result of his urge to continually take on new conquests. The family settled in Harrison,

Hudson County, New Jersey, where John continued to work as a builder and as an

ornamental plasterer. I have managed to trace most of his children’s children, and identified

many descendants, all of whom are detailed on my website. All of John’s sons stayed in New

Jersey, and most worked in the building trade like their father, or as stonemasons or

plasterers. John and Mary Ann also had a ninth child, Ada, in 1860 – who never set foot on

English soil.

I have yet to find John in one U.S. census return, although he does show up in the Newark,

New Jersey street directories and Mary Ann in one census entry. It is quite possible that he

was homesteading, and living somewhat off the grid leaving Mary Ann at home with the

children. Perhaps this gave her some much deserved peace, although she clearly loved him

very much, as he adored her in return. It would be wonderful to find out more about the

couples’ lives in America, and this is a work in progress.

In 1887, 27 years after leaving England, Mary Ann passed away. A few months later,

satisfied that all his children were by now able to support themselves, John returned alone

to the UK, and rented a beautiful house in Hove, close to where he and Mary Ann had lived

during the early years of their marriage. One of the first things he did was to inspect some of

the land he still owned at a village adjacent to Brighton called Copperas Gap. John was

enraged to find that ten years previously a rival firm of timber merchants had built a locked

gate across an old public right of way which ran though his land, and which John himself had

got in trouble for blocking off way back in 1853. So he did what came naturally to him, and

simply started sawing it down.

By this time John was 67 years old, but his fighting spirit had not left him – and he was in the

right. It was either a very big gate, or John was not as strong as he once was, for it took him

several nights to chip away at it until it was gone altogether. He reportedly worked mostly in

the middle of the night, as local children would bother him during the day and slow down

progress. When challenged by his old enemy, John cheerfully ‘clouted him one’ as we say in

Sussex, and told him to get off his land. He then hired 50 men and boys to dig trenches

around the path rendering the area useless as a timber yard.

Brighton had not forgotten John during his time abroad. At first his machinations were

described as that of an old man, a labourer of very weak intellect. The latter may have been

based on his ravings – who would believe that this seemingly deranged individual really did

own the land? But when a local reporter realised who was behind all this he gleefully told

the Brighton Gazette: ‘Little did I think that the defendant in this case was “Old Jack

Harmer”, whose name is as familiar in the mouths of Old Brightonians as household words.

Everyone of mature years, I dare say, remembers the time when the beating of drums and

the blowing of trumpets proclaimed to the constituency that Harmer was seeking

Parliamentary honours at the hands of the electors of Brighton. Since these things have

been of the past, Jack Harmer has been wandering in America. Now he is home again and

since his return to the old country has been doing his best to revive his former notoriety.’

The local parish council were over the moon to get their road back, and that John had stood

up to the bullyboy tactics of the bogus landowners. For a short time he was hailed as a local

hero. Then – John vanishes. Not one will, street directory, census, burial, death, travel or

probate record has so far given up a clue as to what became of John, either over here or in

the U.S. It would be a very sad end to this story if John ended up in one of his own trenches!

I feel it more likely that he returned to America, and perhaps someone, one day, will find

the missing piece of the puzzle. Again, please spread the word amongst anyone you know

who might be able to help find the last resting place of this extraordinary Harmer, who lived

a life packed with rebellion, hard graft, and above all – fun.

I hope that these tales of John’s doings have entertained you as much as they did the public

at the time they occurred. And I am sure that ‘Mad Jack’ would be delighted if he knew that

he was still giving pleasure to people today, especially his distant kinsfolk.

Thank you very much to Jahnine for reading all this out, and I hope, in the spirit of the 1860

election, you will all raise your glasses and join her in three rousing cheers of “Harmer

forever!”

© Anna Antoniou 2019 – https://johnharmer.org.uk