My maternal ancestors
Grtx3 grandparents: William and Sarah Brown
William Brown was my greatx3 grandfather - a man who “amassed a considerable fortune”.
A portrait of him existed in 1847. It would be satisfying to fill the frame shown above sometime.
The first evidence of his family was found in an Assignment of Trustees document dated 1872.
His seven-page will furnished more information of a fascinating life in London.
William was the third son of John and Mary (nee Maydwell) Brown who were both from gentry
farming stock - their fathers were distinguished as ‘Mr’ in the parish records.
William had married and moved to London in his early twenties. We know this because when his
father, John Brown snr, made his will in 1812, he left £5 to his grandson, John Brown - whose father
was William. John jnr was born on 4 April 1790 and baptised at St Mary-le-Bone, London.
William’s will, dated, 1844, mentions four surviving children - Sarah (Stimson), James, Richard and
Emma Dear (my greatx2 grandmother). By following the lives of these children and checking parish
records, details of William’s early life in London emerge.
In the census of 1861, Sarah Stimson (nee Brown) (66) said she was born at Hampstead Road,
Middlesex. This provides an address for William in 1794 and a clue to his wife’s identity. A Sarah
Brown was baptised at nearby St Mary-le-Bone on 5 October 1794, having been born on 19
September. Her parents were William and Ann Brown.
James Brown was also baptised at St Mary-le-Bone on 24 June 1807, having been born a month
earlier on 24 May. However, his parents were William and Sarah Brown. Further details about William
at this time are provided by a deed dated 1809 which establishes that William (aged around forty-
three years, was a builder, living at Baker Street.
My greatx3 grandfather, William Brown, was baptised on 19 May 1766 at Oakham, the county town of
Rutland, near Leicestershire. Many of the parish records of Oakham have not survived and many of
the records we have include transcriptions of Bishops Transcripts such as the baptismal entry that
follows:
Hampstead Road is a mile n-e of Baker
Street and to the east of Regent Park
Richard Brown was born to William and Sarah on 7 November 1710 and christened at St Mary-le-
Bone on 30 November - which was confirmed when he declared at his marriage in 1845 that he was
thirty-four years old.
Finally, Emma Brown was born on 22 July 1813 and was baptised on 3 August also at St Mary-le-
Bone when her parents were also recorded as William and Sarah. Her baptism record is the only one
worth showing as it describes her father as ‘Trade’.
Possibly William had other children between the gaps of baptisms in the known record who died
before his will was made. However, there were more than one William and Ann and William and
Sarah couples having children baptised in St Mary-le-Bone parish around the time and so it is
impossible to tell which progeny were born to my ancestors. Naming patterns are of no help. It seems
certain that William’s wife, Ann, died - probably between 1794 and 1807 - but again several Ann
Browns died locally then and in the absence of other information, it cannot be determined when Ann
died.
What follows is conjecture and is the result of some detective work. It was probable for the reasons
mentioned earlier that William had married twice. The birth dates of two of his children born to
different mothers suggested that his re-marriage took place between 1794 and 1807. I also knew that
his second wife was Sarah.
Armed with this information, could I find William’s second marriage? The obstacles were that William
Brown and indeed Sarah are common names, London was a populous place and there is no
certainty that they even married in the capital. I therefore searched all recorded marriages of William
Brown’s to Sarah’s in London - limiting the sweep to marriages that were conducted north of the
Thames where William lived for most of his life.
I found nineteen possible marriages. It was surprisingly easy to eliminate many -although the taught
script in those times meant that several of the signature were similar, only three showed William as a
widower, as opposed to his being a bachelor. Of these three, one William ‘marked’ rather than signed
the marriage certificate (and I knew my William was literate) and the other’s handwriting was very
obviously not that of my ancestor when compared with the three samples shown above.
The clincher was the little underlining of the ‘m’ in William found in each of the examples shown
above. (None of the other nineteen William Brown’s had underlined the ‘m’ in their signature) Only
one of these widowed William’s had signed in like manner:
William Brown married Sarah Wilmot at St Botolph without Aldersgate on 29 February 1805. For a
comparison, I have also shown William’s signature from 1821 above.
There is the bonus of a family member, William Wilmot, who signed as one of the witnesses. My only
reservation to the fact that this was my forefather’s marriage is the location of the church - although, St
Botolph was only about two miles from Marylebone, the area in which William was residing.
Now is an apt time to construct a William’s tree from what we know:
Sarah Willmot
From parish records of baptisms, censuses, deeds of property transactions and William’s will, it is
possible to track his movements around London and where he lived.
As already noted, William was at Hampstead Road in 1794 and at Baker Street in 1809. By 1825, he
had moved to Hoxton Fields, to the south of Hackney and that same year he had moved again to Felix
Street, Bethnal Green (see later). In 1833, William took the lease of a property at Lea Bridge, Clapton.
In 1838, there was an incident at a house on Lea Bridge Road, near William’s home, which provides a
glimpse of my ancestor’s world and character.
After dark at 21.00 on 13 December, William Palmer Smith (a solicitor’s clerk) attempted to serve a writ
on Arthur George Small, ‘a gentleman’ of Lea Bridge Road. His knock at the door was answered by
Small’s groom, William Carter who took umbrage at how late it was in the day - ‘don’t be like a ------
midnight robber’. Smith went to the rear of the house but was thwarted by two locked, six-foot-high
gates. Carter called out dogs, climbed the gates and threatened that unless Smith left, he would ‘fire a
bullet through his ----- heart’. He pointed a pistol at Smith and at distance of two feet, shot at him. Smith
swerved and the bullet passed under his body, striking a wall. He tried to grasp Carter who slipped back
down behind the gates and shouted that unless Smith left, he would ‘pick him off like a pigeon from a
trap’. Carter was charged with attempted murder and his trial was held at The Old Bailey on 2 January
1839. After several witnesses gave Carter a good character reference for his humanity and general
behaviour, he was sentenced to twelve months hard labour.
One of the witnesses called in the case was William Brown. His sworn statement, lodged at The
National Archives, was as follows:
“William Brown of the Lea Bridge Road, Hackney, M-sex retired builder maketh oath and saith that on
13th December last in the evening about twenty after nine o’clock I left Mr Jones of the Beer Shop (the
British Oak Beer Shop, Lea Bridge Road which was located about twenty-five metres west of the
junction with Otley Road and was still trading in 1904) to go home with a pint of beer in my hand. I
heard a tremendous knocking at the door of Mr Small’s house which I was informed had continued
twenty minutes, there was a voice to my left called ‘Jack, Come along’ or ‘Come away’. Jack did not
obey the call but went round to the gates which part the front ground from the back ground and he
began rattling at them as if he meant to break his way in. The gates are six feet high, lined inside with
boarding, the pales thereof pointed tops and full of tenterhooks in all directions. The cottage is on the
left of the gates. On the right hand side of the gates to the extent of the front ground there is a wall
between six and seven feet high. On the right of the gates in the back ground there is a stable, chaise
house and tool house under one roof. There is a lamp on the road that leads to Lea Bridge about sixty
yards off but reported at the Station House that night as not lit. Also another up the road towards
Clapham 160 yards off lighted with oil not gas, no moon; no stars but a cloudy and very dark night. I
was about sixteen yards from the gates when a pistol was fired and I distinctly saw the blaze which a
discharge of powder would produce taking its course over the stable and it is my firm opinion that if it
was fired with no other intention than to let them know he had got firearms with him.
Mr Small said to me when he had engaged the cottage to look out for him a young man to look after his
house and to manage the garden. I, knowing the prisoner to be a steady young man, did recommend
him to Mr Small and he had expressed to me since he has been in his service how much he suited him”
Wm Brown.
So a little can be gleaned about William from this account – indeed, even allowing for the strictures of
making a statement, something of his manner of speech is revealed. He was a ‘retired tradesman’ in
1838. He enjoyed a little beer in the evening, but was only a moderate drinker. In view of his comments
about Carter, he was perhaps not exactly impartial when describing the scene of the contretemps. This
conclusion is borne out by what followed.
On 26 January 1839, a petition with more than fifty signatures was sent to Lord John Russell at the
Home Office. It was sparked by Carter being urged by his counsel to plead guilty to minor offences
rather take a chance on being ‘honourably acquitted’ when his case was heard by a jury. For this
reason, a review of his case was suggested so that ‘an innocent man’ was not punished. The first name
on the petition was William’s (followed by three other witnesses at the trial, see below). The inference
must be that William organised the petition. This was a man with a social conscience and the
wherewithal to express it.
Returning to the location of William’s homes, William was still living at Lea Bridge in 1841 with his son
James and a servant, but five years later he moved south of the Thames to 26 Park Street, Trafalgar
Road, Greenwich (shown below). He was still residing at Greenwich in 1848, ‘now of Union Place East’
on the bank of the River Thames.
William’s considerable financial dealings are now examined. In his will, William alluded to his purchase
of a piece of ‘freehold and hereditaments situate on the south side and abutting north on the
Commercial Road in the hamlet of Ratcliff in the parish of Saint Dunstan, Stepney....which I purchased
in 1805 from the Commissioners of the road’. He leased this property to Richard Ward for 999 years
at £2 pa. The approximate location was somewhere along the red line shown below. It was about a
quarter of a mile north of the Thames, and just west of Limehouse.
Four years later, on 30 June 1809, William bought a lease for 94¼ years from the Duke of Bedford at
£6 12/- per annum, payable in four equal instalments per year. The property was a coach house and
stable measuring twenty-four feet by thirty feet at 4 Gower Mews, St George in Bloomsbury - which
was located between Tottenham Court Road and the British Museum and was about a mile east of his
home at Baker Street.
As the clipping below illustrates, William was still using the stables in 1817.
William’s father, John Brown, died at
Oakham in 1814 and left William £100 in his
will. By 1825, he had amassed a large sum
of money because he purchased a triangle of
land at the junction of Felix Street and
Cambridge Circus, Hackney Road, Bethnal
Green that included the newly-erected Duke
of Cambridge tavern (at 25 Felix Street,
shown right) which was ‘being built in
December 1823’. The lease cost £2,200.
The plot of land was described as being ‘at the north-east extremity of a field commonly called Mr
Brown’s field (not William Brown!) being at the corner of Cambridge Circus and Felix Street which Felix
Street runs down on the south side of the Hackney Road at the eastern extremity thereof near the
Cambridge Heath turnpike running 114 feet on the east and west sides thereof’.
After acquiring the lease to the Duke of Cambridge for almost 58 years (the original lease was for 60
years from 1823), William immediately sold it on - to John Field for 25 years on 15 August 1825; to the
victualler Frederick Crawley for 21 years from 1850 on 26 May 1846 and to victualler John Smith for
11¾ years from 1871 on 30 June 1848.
He and his heirs received £52 10/- rent each year for the pub or around £3,045 in total. In addition to
this, the surrounding land also had some value.
William’s next piece of business, on 30 August 1833, was to buy a sixty-year lease for to the land and
newly built house near Lea Bridge Road (see diagram above). The annual rent was £38.
There were other pieces of business dealings - but it is only William’s will that discloses some of their
details: three more public houses were leased: the Bridport Arms, Bridport Place, New North Road,
Hoxton; The Globe, Chart Street, East Road, St Leonard, Shoreditch and the Three Cups tavern at
Bow.
The following news clipping from the Leicester Mercury, August 1849 announced the death of William:
George Royce was a farmer of around 250 acres. He married Mary Ann Brown, William’s niece by his
brother James. George lived in the last house on the north side of Northgate Street, Oakham - a mere
100 metres from Oakham railway station which opened in 1847. Below is a photo of the junction of
Northgate Street and Station Road which was taken in 1860. George’s house, where William died, is
behind the wall to the extreme left.
William’s will was originally drawn up on 17 April 1844 when he was still living at Lea Bridge. His
executors were his son, James Brown and his friend, Charles Coley.
The will contains considerable information about William’s family and property, as follows:
The property at Commercial Road, Ratcliffe (see above) to son James Brown and heirs.
The Bridport Arms to son James Brown
The Globe, Shoreditch to son Richard Brown
The Three Cups, Bow - income from this to be paid to daughter Sarah Stimson (wife of Sherman) and
then to her children on her death.
The Duke of Cambridge, Bethnal Green - income from this to be paid to daughter Emma Dear (wife of
Frederick) and then to her children on her death.
£100 was to be invested by his executors in public funds and the dividends to be paid to sister Sarah
Rawlings, wife of Richard of Oakham, ‘for her sole and separate use free from the debts of her present
or any future husband’. On her death, the dividends were to be paid to her children.
Nineteen guineas were to be paid to William’s executors ‘for their trouble’.
Sarah Stimson and Emma Dear were to be given £20 ‘for their mourning’.
Each of William’s four children - James, Richard, Sarah and Emma - were to have two of his eight
tablespoons.
Sarah Stimson was to have six teaspoons and sugar tongs.
Emma Dear was to have four teaspoons and sugar tongs.
James Brown was bequeathed a metal cased watch.
James and Richard Brown were left William’s wearing apparel.
The residue of his estate was to be divided equally between his children, James, Richard, Sarah and
Emma.
In a codicil dated 20 December 1847, William noted that his proposed executor, Charles Coley had
died and stated that Sarah Stimson, now a widow, should replace him. Sarah was also to have
William’s portrait.
If one can tell the man by the company he keeps, some information about Charles Coley may be
pertinent. Charles was about eight years younger than William. He died and was buried at St James,
St Pancras on 14 August, 1847. In his will (wherein William is not mentioned), Charles is described as
formerly a wine and brandy merchant of Tuffnell Place, Holloway, North London - formerly of Islington
Green. He held the leasehold tavern, The Fox, Old Paradise Row, Islington. He also owned the
houses at 10-12 Upper Street, Islington, 4 Tuffnell Place, Holloway, 26 and 27 Hunningford Terrace,
Islington, 4 Church Row and 2 Allsop Place, Marylebone
Of William’s children
James Brown was born on 24 May 1807 and was living with his father at Lea Bridge in 1851. He
returned to his family’s roots, marrying Mary Ann Royce (born 1815, Oakham, Rutland) at Oakham in
1850.In 1861, the couple were living at Northgate Street, Oakham. James was described as a
‘Proprietor of Homes’. When James died and was buried in the town on 10 April 1871, his effects were
valued at under £2,000.
Then, an indenture, signed and dated 1 July 1872, was made between Mary Ann Brown, widow of
Oakham and Emma (nee Brown) Dear’s children - William Sidney, Frederick George, Matilda and
Alfred Samuel Dear. It referred to the leases taken by William Brown on the Lea Bridge property in
1833 and the stables at Gower Mews in 1809.
Mary Ann Brown, James’ widow drew attention to the fact that her husband had bequeathed his
stables at Gower Mews to his sisters Sarah Stimson and and Emma Dear and also the house at Lea
Bridge with its neighbouring Pond Cottage to Emma Dear.
As both Sarah Stimson and Emma Dear had died - Emma, being intestate and leaving leaving four
children - their interest in the properties had passed to James Brown’s widow, Mary Ann. She agreed
to assign all the properties in equal shares to Emma’s children as she believed this to be her
husband’s ‘wish and intention’.
For me, the discovery of this document was exciting as it was the first sighting of the ancestors of my
great grandfather, William Sidney Dear.
Mary Ann continued to live in Northgate Street, receiving dividends until she also died and was buried
at Oakham on 7 March 1896. Her effects were valued at £748.
Sarah Brown was born on 19 September 1794 and married Sherman Stimson (who was also born at
Oakham) on 27 December 1821 at St Dunstan’s, Stepney. The couple had two sons, Sherman Brown
Stimson (born 1823 at Oakham) and William (born 1827 at Shoreditch). In 1827, Sherman was
described as a victualler of Great Chart Street, Shoreditch - and so he was also described in 1862.
In 1841, Sarah and Sherman were living at Jubilee Street, Mile End, Stepney where Sherman was a
‘merchant’. He died in 1845. Sarah was living at 8 Seymour Crescent, Somers Town, St Pancras in
1851 and ten years later, at 2 Brunswick Place, Islington. On each occasion she was noted as a
‘Proprietor of houses’.
Sarah died at Brighton in July 1870. Sarah and Sherman’s only known grand-daughter, Edith Ruddock
(nee Stimson) was living at Portsmouth in 1901 with her mother.
Richard Brown was born on 7 November 1810 and married Elizabeth Herridge on 22 February 1845
at St Andrew, Holborn. Apart from his marriage, I have found no information about Richard.
Emma Brown: see link, Emma and Frederick Dear