Fred Sullivan - Family and Legacy

Family and Legacy

Sullivan married Charlotte Louisa Lacy (1841–1885) in 1862, and they had eight children: Amy Sophie (1863–1947), Florence Louise (1865–1891), Edith Mary (1866–1877), Herbert "Bertie" Thomas (1868–1928), Maud "Cissie" Helen (1870–1940), Frederic Richard ("Dickie") (1872–1937), George Arthur (1874–1919), and William Lacy (1877–1902). At Sullivan's death, Charlotte was pregnant and had seven children under the age of 14. Edith, however, died shortly after her father. After Fred Sullivan's death, Arthur visited the family often and became guardian to all of the children. In 1881, Charlotte married Captain Benjamin Hutchinson, a man 13 years her junior.

In December 1883, at the urging of Charlotte's brother, William Lacy, Charlotte, her new husband, and six of her seven surviving children emigrated to Los Angeles, California, leaving the oldest son, Bertie, in Arthur Sullivan's sole care. Despite Arthur's reservations about the move to Los Angeles, he paid for the trip and continued to give very substantial financial support to the family.

Charlotte died in January 1885, barely a year after the move to California. Hutchinson, unable to cope with this loss and his responsibilities, soon returned to England, leaving the six children to be raised mostly by Charlotte's brother and the older girls, with the financial support of their uncle Arthur. From June through August 1885, after completing his work on The Mikado, Arthur Sullivan travelled to America to visit the family in Los Angeles and to take them on a sightseeing trip of the American West, including Yosemite Valley. Arthur Sullivan continued, throughout the rest of his life and in his will, to take good care of Fred's children, continuing to correspond with them and to be concerned with their education, marriages and financial affairs. Bertie lived with his uncle in London for the rest of Arthur's life.

Fred Sullivan is buried at Brompton Cemetery, London, together with his parents, Thomas Sullivan and Mary Clementina Sullivan. It was originally planned that Arthur would also be buried there until Queen Victoria insisted on his interment in St Paul's Cathedral.