updated Feb. 27, 2011, with thanks to Peter Levitt, Richard’s cousin

The tree: Salomon Herz Hirschland (one of the three original brothers) >> Moses Hirschland >> Richard Hirschland >> Sydney Harvey (born Hirschland) >>Anthony Harvey >>Richard Harvey

I have found another renamed UK Hirschland family, the Harveys. The Harveys were actually known to several living Hirschland family members through their banking connections, though they were not listed on any of the family trees that I had in my possession. One evening while scrolling through many pages of Google search results for Hirschland, I found the following listing and opened the 50 page e-book that it referred to:

But I’m Jewish!
headmaster at his school told him, “Hirschland, in the future you will be known as Harvey.” The story goes that my grandfather recognised that a name like …
jewsforjesus.org/resources/ebooks/archive/harvey/harvey.pdf

Richard Harvey

Thus I found Richard Harvey, and in the first few pages of this book, discovered enough genealogical information to link him to the Hirschland family tree. He, his wife, two of three brothers, numerous children, and his parents still live around London.

Harvey’s book describes his great-great grandfather Salomon (actually Moses, son of Herz Salomon Hirschland), a doctor, settling in Essen, and eventually becoming the personal physician to Alfred Krupp.   The Krupp company was the major steel manufacturing company in Germany. Moses was a brother to Simon Hirschland, whose bank also served the Krupps. (The Hirschlands were a full-service Jewish family.)

Richard Hirschland, great-grandfather and namesake of Richard Harvey. With thanks to David Blank, who is related to us through this man's wife. http://www.blankgenealogy.com

Moses’ son, Richard Hirschland, was a wholesaler of fine worsted (woollen) cloth to the tailoring trade, and probably provided credit (before the advent of ready-made suits).  According to his letterhead he had branches in Paris, New York & Buenos Aires.  He came to England with some of his family members, the Nathans married to his sisters, in the 1890s.  About 1934, the family name was changed by Richard Harvey’s grandfather (Moses’ son), Sydney, who recognized that a name like Hirschland, which sounded German and had been an embarrassment to him in the British army during the First World War, would not be helpful for his work as a stock broker in the London.

After some discussion, the name Harvey was settled on. Anthony Harvey (now aged 83), Sydney’s son, says, “I was born Anthony Adolph Hirschland and at age 6 was told my name would change to Harvey. The Adolph bit we let slip … when the name Adolph was stinking. We lost about 18 of our Hirschland relations during the war in concentration camps.”

At the beginning of the Second World War, Sydney Harvey sent his two children, Moyra and Anthony, to South Africa to be looked after by his friend, Sir Ernest Oppenheim, and the Marsden family. Sydney joined British Intelligence.  After the war, Anthony returned to the UK where he married and had a family whom he raised in a Liberal Jewish tradition. Much of Richard’s book tells about his coming to the belief that Judaism and Jesus do not need to be at odds with one another. Some members of our extended family may find this notion difficult to understand, but I know from having talked with many family members that there are many Jews (from Orthodox to Reform), many Christians, Atheists, Buddhists, and probably many more faiths that are observed by our family today.

Note from Alfred Krupp inviting Dr. Moses Hirschland for coffee and cake.

Helen Hirschland, about 1918.

Richard Hirschland had four children.  After the First World War the second oldest child, Helen, who had been a nurse decided to visit India.  En route the story goes, she fell in love with Claude Marsden who was going to Shanghai.  After a stay there and the birth of their son Donald they decided to go to South Africa where Claude took up farming.  Donald had two daughters both of whom are now living in the USA.  Names associated with this part of the family include Marsden, Caro, and Copans.