Here's a small photo of the bandstand:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/msbosco...ry/village.htm

The following page on that site mentions the pier being built in 1889!

Oh thank you so much for this: you have been to such a lot of trouble: that is incredibly kind of you & I am mortified that you got wet on our account.... I must say that what I love about family research is that the "human level" material does throw up some real puzzles. One thing which I guess must be a huge bugbear is the tendency to fiddle about with both street names & numbering: it makes reasonable tasks that much trickier.. especially tantalising when the objective truth of where they lived must be relativle within touch... I must say the whole set up just reeks of late Victoriana/Edwardian : the buildings, the bandstand across the way is just too good to be true! I can well picture Edward staying there & sauntering down to the pier with his little nephew to try a little fishing or taking a stroll through meadows to picturesque spots on the Stour... One almost is surprised that the places still (mostly) exist as it is so redolent of the time... I wish I knew more about Alfred & Alice & the children: I am guessing that they felt unwanted in Britain & so emigrated, but to what I do not know: I'd guess agriculture or mining might be the most likely prospects: Boscombe probably represented a transitional period while they made their minds up: presumably in rented lodgings & in goodness knows what employment. It would have been a lovely spot for Edward to visit (especially in his bachelor days) but I rather suspect he never saw his brother again: I'd like to think that his nephew & niece looked him up when we know they visited the UK.. Thank you so much again though: most appreciative. A

Sad to think they never saw one another again, but of course that was a very common occurrence when people emigrated in those days.

Alfred was a lodging house keeper in 1891.

I really enjoyed having a proper look at The Crescent so don't worry about the rain!

Oh dear: the reply I thought I had posted to this seems to have vanished.. I had thanked you again for all your efforts especially getting wet to do so & commiserated over the frustrations of renumbering, which along with renaming streets makes research so frustrating when the buildings are still up. I mentioned how redolent of the era the pictures seem & the bandstand opposite is just to good to be true. I imagine Edward sauntering down to the pier with Bertie or across the fields to fish..... Thank you so much: I hope my reply stays up this time...

How mysterious: soon as I posted my second reply, my original one & your subsequent post (re)appeared... Thank you for reminding me about the lodging house keeper fact: I had forgotten that: I would imagine that he was either a paid employee or that his father had given him some capital to set up in that way: whatever the truth is, he obviously found the colonial lure strong though the region was of course very tense at the time: he would have had the Boer War right on his family's doorstep..