Albany Finch

Archivist's Excerpt from: A Chiming Town Indeed: A Painstaking History of Pendulum & its People, Vol. I, CVI 42.5

Albany Lancaster Finch is the only child of J.P. Finch, last Chancellor of Parliament of Orphan Heights prior to the events of and the events that then befell Orphan. Although Albany is an alumni of More Academy, Albany Finch has long been comfortable with Orphan's labouring class, partly due to his time spent in Attistock, and partly because of his attachment to the Esker family. More on that later.

Early in his young adulthood, he took a situation his father arranged with the Ministry of Clockwork as a Timetable Data Collector or "Ticktockman." His first dalliance in this operation saw him spending a great deal of time in Attistock. Initially, the Tramrunners and Limeiron men resented the presence of a "walking cravat-srophy" like himself, but Albany quickly endeared himself to them, usually by purchasing them rounds of sizable quantities of alcohol.

It was during this time, while frequenting a local eatery called the Songbird Cafe during a research study on the Tramway timetables, that met Agnes Esker, a young waitress who utterly beguiled him. As brilliant as she was beautiful, Albany found himself smitten, and soon proposed marriage. She accepted, but the union was never to be. Agnes passed away unexpectedly in 1894, leaving Albany's hopes of coming family dashed, though he remained close to the Esker family ever since.

Reliable, sensible, but also warm and a hardly sociable chap, Albany is just as much at home at a meat-and-potatoes dinner table in Harchester as he is in the halls of Parliament. As a lad growing up in Ellestoft, Albany wanted to be part of the theatre, and would never miss a show at the Orpheum Theatre down the lane from his family estate.

The last living Finch (aside from his father), Albany is always conscious of the burden of carrying on the family name, his ancestor Matthew Finch having been one of Orphan's great first leaders.