Help us solve family puzzle

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Your letters to the newspaper
I wonder if you or your readers can help with a question that has puzzled our family for years.

There is a story in the Bubb family that tells of the family fortunes being lost in a scam(?) known as The Selsey Bubble. The Bubb fortune was made in the building trade in Southsea in the late 18th and early 19th century.

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The story goes it was my grandfather (Ernest Bubb) who lost the money, but various researches suggest it may have been his father.

We have come up with two possibilities: 1. The reclamation of Pagham Harbour, where investors money was used to build a sea wall to reclaim land that would then be shared between investors. For various reasons the division of land did not come about, but was made irrelevant by the great storm of 1910 when the sea wall was washed away and the land inundated.

2. Investment in a scheme to develop Selsey into a Bognor-style resort which never materialised.

Have you or you readers any idea where this family story originated?

Jill Henbest (née Bubb), [email protected], Woodland Drove, Winchester