The Descendants of John Burgh of
Middle Hulme,Leekfrith, Staffordshire:
1450 to Present
by Catharine Ann Brough Hind, June 2004
Including her matrial from:
The Ancestors and Descendants of the Broughs of Staffordshire, England
(RBFO, 1988)
Pedigrees of the Later Broughs of Staffordshire, England: 1450-2004
List of John Burgh's Descendants
Richard
de Burgh (b.1450) of Brewood, & Alice
Thomas Burgh
(b.1480) of Brewood, & Maude, moved to Middle Hulme, Leek, in early
1500's
John Burgh
(b.1508) & Johanna of Middle Hulme, Leek
Thomas Burgh
(b.1538) & Anne Cooke/Cockeld
Lionel Brough
(b.1582) & Anne Wilkinson
Thomas Brough
(b.1627) & Margaret Adams
Thomas Brough
(chr.1668) & Edith Brindley
John Brough
(chr.1702) & Mary
William
Brough (chr.1724/5) & Mary Barber...had three sons...
William
Brough (chr.1758) & Hannah Robinson
William
Brough (b.1801) & Catharine Oulsnam
Edmund
Brough (b.1843) & Rachel Cantrell
Edgar
Brough (chr.1898) & Rose Edith Turner
Catharine
Ann Brough (b.1932) & Stanley Maurice Hind
John
Brough (chr.1760) & Mary Hulme
Joshua
Brough (chr.1802) & Harriett Littlehales
William
Spooner Brough (b.1840)
James
Brough (chr.1770) & Ellen Land
James
Henry Brough (chr.1816) & Mary Abbott
Charles
Brough (chr.1844) & Eliza Mellor
Harry
Edwin Brough (chr.1869) & Ellen Marriott
John Burgh and His Descendants
In the annals of Staffordshire, apropos
of a violent episode on July 28,1538, that took place at Tittesworth,
reference is made to a John Broughe "late of Mydelholme",
barely a mile north. The 1547 Will of Robert Brough of Chappelhowse
names the executors of John Brough of Middull Hulme as his debtors,
so how many of them were there? A John was taxed on Middlehulme in 1543;
so were there two Johns, or a third? A Thomas of Mydelholme was equipped
with head and leg armour and a shefe of arrows in the muster of 1539.
We are on firmer ground when we come to...JOHN BURGH (BROUGH) and JOHANNA
(Saunderson) and their descendants.
John made his will on August 20,1557,
leaving a moiety (half) of everything to Richard "my elder son"
and "my wife and her children, not yet of the age of 14, a moiety."
I wonder, was Johanna a second wife? On May 20,1572, Thomas Broughe
of the Middlehulme, and "Joanne his wydowed mother" began
a dowry indenture with John Cooke, (Cockeld) of Coltesmoore, for a marriage
with John's daughter Anne. Obligation was on Thomas and Jane to release
to Richard Broughe and to John Gorstelowe (a brother-in-law?) a messuage
(farm) and lands, "lying or beinge in Middlehulme". Before
matters are concluded in 1574 the situation changes, for elder brother
Richard has died and Thomas, executor, is to "pay his brothers
and sister (un-named), certain legacies" from Richard's share of
the estate.
Interestingly, on April 24, 1574, John
Cooke vel Cokely made a Bargain of Sale to Thomas, son of John Jolley,
mercer, of land in Leeke-ffelde, for £7. An installment for the
£40 that was his side of the Dowry "to be paid in the porch
on the South side of the Olde Church in Leke."
In 1611 Thomas made an indenture with
Sir Christopher Hatton and Francis Needham, Esq for property on New
Grange land in, perhaps, a marriage agreement for his elder son, another
Richard. In 1618, Thomas made a Dowry with William Wilkinson of Northrode,
Cheshire, for the marriage of son Lionel and William's daughter Anne.
Built in to this was provision for his own sister Ellen Brough and his
elder son Richard and their heirs. "Richard Brough of New Grange
" died in 1637. It is probable that from his heirs in Kingsley
the Broughs of Utah sprang.
Lionel and Ann had three sons, Lionel,
Thomas and Martin. Lionel Brough (Senior) died by 1643 and Lionel his
son in 1649; and his only son, a small child, in 1655. Both widows were
entitled to moiety at Middlehulme and Grace, widow of Lionel (Junior)
had her brother Thomas Wood as a tenant there, probably as buffer between
her and her fearsome mother-in- law Anne. Thomas, Anne's middle son
and his bride Margaret ,daughter of Thomas Adams of Bircheshead of the
great potting family, felt the full force of her wrath, and we note
that their first child was baptised to them "of Netherhulme"
a house just south of Middlehulme and perhaps the moiety intended for
Richard Brough, their uncle, who died in 1574.
The Broughs of Windygates took it upon
themselves to challenge Thomas Brough for Middlehulme, and unbelievably,
Anne sided with them. After a deal of acrimony and in an "open
court in an ale-house", in which Thomas Brough of Windygates, his
kin and their friends made an Award of Middlehulme to themselves, saying
that when the last witnesses to the Grants of Thoms, father of Lionel
(Senior) were dead, then the Windygates family would "take"
the property. In 1668, left with no option, Thomas Brough of Middlehulme,
Gentleman, took his case before the great Sir Orlando Bridgeman. Many
of Staffordshire's and Cheshire's illustrious names attach to the case
as referees overseers and witnesses. Inevitably the expenses impoverished
both sides and a procession of tenancy agreements and bonds sold and
borrowed against, bear witness to that. Two years later, in 1670, his
mother Anne, nee Wilkinson, had left a valuable will and lavish praise
on her sons-in-law; but to her son Thomas, one shilling and words of
rebuke.
Sadly, Thomas Brough, gentleman, son of
Lionel, yeoman ,and the late Anne
and grandson of old Thomas Brough, gentleman, died in 1675 and left
an estate of goods to the value of only £4.15s. 6d. Small comfort
that all of his overseers and executors were "Gentlemen".
Martin, the youngest of Lionel and Anne's
sons, a child of nine when his father died, was himself only 25 years
old when he died in 1665. His estate was valued at £35 and his
goods consisted of three sets of riding clothes and saddles and boots,
but no horse; a harybar, weapon and insignia of a sergeant. Had he been
disabled in skirmishes of the unsettled period following Civil War and
the return of monarchy (1660) for, of an educated household, he alone
signed himself with a X? His Will, dated not fifth, but Ye Seventeenth,
year of Ye Reign of our sovereign Lord King Charles Ye Second...suggestive
of a Royalist in those largely Puritan, Roundhead Moorlands. Generous
gifts to his mother and sisters; second and third-best riding gear to
brothers-in-law; but Thomas, scorned by his mother, is his favorite
brother to have his best riding clothes, the harybar and words of warm
affection.
Thomas, born in 1668 to Thomas and Margaret,
was a child of twelve when his father died and it is notable that those
same gentry who had stood by his father's disappointments were party
to all of his climb into adulthood and solvency; and party to indentures
for a marriage in 1702 of Thomas to Edith, daughter of John Brindley
of Eaves, Kingsley, and Phoebe, his wife, nee Hollins of Mossley Hall.
These are two of Staffordshire's oldest families of gentry and yeomen.
Middlehulme was in parlous trouble and
may well have suffered the slings and arrows of Civil War; theft of
horses and fodder and obliged to lodge troops. Restoration on the house
in 2002 shews signs that it has undergone trauma at some stage of its
almost five hundred-year-life. In attempts to restore its resources
after the war and legal battles, its assets were sub-let, as was often
the case by estate-owners in need of income. Fortunately, Thomas was
resourceful and made the most of any doors opened to him by his Brindley
and Adams kin. He built a new wing on to Middlehulme in 1718. Later
in life he paid tax on lands in Alton, Calton Moor, Middlehulme and
Trentham where his youngest son Benjamin farmed at Burston-in-Stone.
Thomas died in 1748 aged 80 years at Alveton, having settled his own
and his father's loans and built his portfolio of properties, justifying
the faith reposed in him by all his friends and in-laws and those of
his parents.
Thomas and Edith had six
children, the oldest, John, born in 1702. John's first two children
were John and Richard, baptised in Trentham in 1722 and 1723 to Ann.
To Mary he had William, baptised in Leek, 1724, the year in which John
came of age (21 years) and in which his father Thomas made over to him
a moiety (half) of Middlehulme. In 1736 John died, leaving a quiverful
of young children. William was aged twelve, the same age at which his
grandfather Thomas had been left fatherless. We would have expected
that John, at fourteen the eldest and their father's namesake would
be the heir to his property but no, it was twelve-year-old William;
and this was initially a puzzle.
When the Mormon Church issued burial as
well as marriage and baptism registers, there was nothing more sure
than that this would alter the face of many a pedigree, many a pre-held
belief. It was so in Trentham's case. "Richard born to John and
Ann a servant, died 1723". John too had been born to Ann in 1772,
so of course it was William son of Mary, the wife, who was legal heir
to Middlehulme. The will of grandfather Thomas,1748, gave a small bequest
to "John, son of my son John". However minimal, it recognized
John who, uniquely, was a signatory (so he had been schooled!) of family
papers in the 1760s. A very uncommon acceptance of a son born out of
wedlock.
William Brough, b.1724, had Middlehulme,
Calton Moor Farm and the Red Lion Coaching Inn there. He married Mary
Barber, daughter of Isaac Barber, watchmaker, blacksmith and innkeeper
of Meerbrook, in 1756. With three sons, William 1758, John 1760, and
James (bapt. at Bloor) 1770. Mary, wife of Mr. Brough of Middlehulme
and Calton Moor was interred, 1773 in Meerbrook. Her widower had nine
motherless children, aged three to fifteen years. Vague memory of an
80 year old grandson, writing of what he heard as a child, led to Sleigh's
pedigree attributing William's wife Mary as a Plant. Elder half-brother
John married Mary Plant in 1745 at Trentham. Unless William remarried
is it likely that this aunt cared for them? and that it was her father
William Plant of Stoneycliffe who made William Brough and his uncle
Benjamin Brough of Stone executors of his will in 1775. "Mr William
Brough of Middlehulme, Yeoman," died in 1795. His stone in Meerbrook,
although now fallen flat, is still legible and was photographed by RFBO
members in August, 2002. With him, his eldest son William, ( d.1811)
and wife Hannah, nee Robinson, left widowed, her six children under
ten years old. Hannah rented a moiety of Middlehulme to her brother
until her children were of an age for her to leave them. She then bought
a house in London Road, Leek, and lived as "an annuitant"
on family money as described in census records. Living with her, her
middle daughter, Benedicta.
The eldest son of William
Brough and Hannah Robinson was William Robinson, born 1800. In early
1843 at Sutton in Cheshire, he married his second cousin Catharine Ann
Oulsnam of Stoneycliffe whose grandmother Mrs. Ann Ratcliffe nee Brough
was sister to William's grandfather William of Middlehulme and Calton
Moor Crossroads. Twins Edmund and Ann were born to William and Catharine
later in 1843 and another daughter, Hannah two years later. Ann would
marry her first-cousin Joseph Oulsnam of Stoneycliffe and Hannah married
James Clulowe of The Alderlea. Ann and Joseph`s son John William Oulsnam
married a Clulowe niece, Alice; and James and Hannah`s Clulowe`s elder
daughter Hannah married her own first-cousin John William Brough, elder
son of Edmund of Middlehulme. All in true Leekfryth fashion. Oh what
a tangled genealogical web they all wove...except for Edmund who had
broken the circle of generations of intermarriage.
The twin son of William and Catharine,
and born in 1843, Edmund's marriage to Rachel Cantrell, daughter of
a family of Bradnop farmers and blacksmiths had the Brough clan up-in-arms.
Not only was she not even distantly related so far as they could discern,
but worse! she was a Methodist! Worse yet, her brothers were hell-fire-preachers
making a public display of themselves...and their in-laws! Edmund insisted
Rachel join him at church; and now the Cantrells were up-in-arms and
came regularly to Middlehulme to oblige mother and children to fall
on their knees on the stone floor for a long harangue about their wicked
ways...well they did if the children didn`t spot their horse and gig
coming and race up into hay lofts and trees.
Edmund farmed Middlehulme but with his
Silk cousins shared an interest in music, art and the history of their
county and family . He was responsible for making a wealth of family
papers of the 16thc-on, available for study. Indentures, dowry agreements,
etcetera; and gave many into the Brough Archive in Stafford County Record
Office. He kept those papers important and personal to his lands and
properties at Middlehulme. A wise move then, but ultimately a mistake.
With the compulsory-purchase of Middlehulme mid-20thc for flooding and
making Tittesworth Reservoir, the papers went to the Waterboard. In
1980, I enquired whether I could see them, only to be told that those
prior to 1849 had been destroyed. "It was pointless to keep them
when we are short of office space."
Edmund`s twelve children went to Leek
Grammar School and some on to the Universities of Durham or Leicester.
They learned to play the piano and to sing, although Rachel was unsure
of the sense of parting with the money. When Edmund died in 1907 the
niceties stopped and it was the elder children who gave the three younger
piano lessons. Edmund`s friend and cousin William Spooner Brough (n
1840, d 1917), silkman, naturalist, historian, artist and gallery-owner
extended the hand of friendship to widow Rachel and her family, but
she had not forgotten how opposed William Spooner Brough had been to
Edmund`s marriage to "only a blacksmith`s daughter" urging
him as head of the family to take a bride from a county family. She
rebuffed him brusquely. When he sent his coachman with gifts for a birthday
or Christmas gift, or written invitation to one of his Godchildren to
take lunch or tea in his home she sent him homeward with a sharp word.
In adulthood those of them who were his Godchildren called at his home
in Buxton Road and he taught them about literature and art .To the youngest,
Edgar (this writers father) he gave paintings by what were the then
avante garde artists.
Once her children were fledged,
Rachel Brough moved to The Villa, Buxton Road, the 18thc house belonging
to the family as a Town House for attending to their businesses on weekdays;
and where their children lodged in term-time attending the Grammar School
from their remote homes and farms...until the
motor car made it unnecessary to do so.
Middlehulme didn`t pass
to John William the eldest son as he and his cousin-wife had several
properties by inheritance, including Calton Manor House; and Far House
at Upperhulme theirs by purchase from another Silk cousin, Edwin Brough.
The Old Seat went to Edmund and Rachel`s middle son George Henry Brough,
another Silkman,and his wife Elizabeth nee Broster, and then eventually
out of the family by compulsory purchase for creation of the Tittesworth
Reservoir.
Edmund's children spread their wings around
the county and beyond, only John (1877-1946) and Hannah farmed Far House,Windygates,
which they bought from cousin Edwin Brough of the Silk Broughs. Here
is some information on their children and posterity:
Catharine
Ann Brough (1876-1937) m. Charles Moss of the Oxheye, Meerbrook. One
daughter, Jessie Lillian.
John William
Brough (1877-1946) married Hannah Clewlow; son of John (1907-1977) o.s.p.,
daughter: Gladys
Catharine (1909-1974).
Thomas Brough
(1878-1955) married Hilda Foster of Derby. Farmed Fryth Bottom and then
went into business
in Longton. Had three daughters.
Lucy Brough
(1880-1934) married Arthur Eardley of Fynney Lane Farm, nr. Cheddleton.
Three daughters
and a son who died in childhood.
Edmund Brough
[chr. 1882] died in infancy, 1884.
Hannah Brough
(1883-1932) died unmarried at The Villa, Buxton Road.
Archibald
Brough (1885-1967) married Cicely Fynney. Three daughters. Proprietor,
Silk Dyeworks, Leek.
Joshua Brough
(1887-1938) married Jessica Heywood. Proprietor, Silk Manufactory, Leek.
Two daughters.
George Henry
Brough (1888-1979) married Elizabeth Tyson Broster. Silk Manufactory,
Leek. Son Lionel(
1926-1986), unmarried, o.s.p. ; and two daughters.
Edwin Brough
(1890-1968) married Sarah Burnett of Bottom House, Ipstones. Farmed
Ladymeadows, Bradnop.
Son died in infancy. Two daughters.
Wilfrid
Brough (1892-1973) married Mary Downey of Cramp Castle, County Fethard,
Tipperary. Son Lawson,
(1921-1989), o.s.p. One daughter. Proprietor, Silk Mnfctr., Leicester
& Engineering Works, Brentford,
Middlesex.
Norman Brough
(1894-1964) married Gwendoline Billings of Leek, Proprietor, Silk Dyeworks,
Leek, Nottingham,
& London. Two daughters.
Edgar Brough
(1898-1958) married Rose Edith Turner. Proprietor, Woollen Manufacturer,
Ealing. One daughter,
Catharine Ann (b.1932).
Edgar Brough born 1898, was the last
child of Edmund Brough and Rachel nee Cantrell and the last baby born
to Middlehulme in a 500 year union of the House and the family. Edgar
enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps in 1920 where, after graduating from
Leicester in Textile Machinery Engineering, he worked in development
of aero engines; deafness excluding him from flying. In 1929 he founded
a woollen manufactory and engineering company in tandem, maintaining
and building textile machinery; in Ealing, West London. His wife Rose
was the designer of their classic knitwear and haute couture suits;
supplying top London Fashion Houses like Hardy Amies, The White House
in New Bond Street and Marshall and Snelgrove and in this way often
dressed Royal and Society ladies.
Edgar and Rose Brough`s
only child was born in 1932 and named Catharine Ann, after Edgar`s oldest
sister, and great-grandmother (nee Oulsnam), but called Ann. At the
age of eighteen Ann met Stanley Hind, her future husband, in the church
where they would marry three years later. Stanley was at King`s College,
London University, graduating with an A.K.C. degree combining Arts with
Theological studies. A fourth and final year of purely Theological study
prepared him for Ordination firstly to the Diaconate and then to the
Priesthood in the Church of England.
After marriage in August 1954, Ann joined
him at Haydock, Lancashire where he served his first curacy; his second
at All Saints, Elland, in the Wakefield Diocese, Yorkshire, where they
stayed ever afterwards, near to where Stanley was born. In 1960 he was
inducted vicar of his own parishes, first of all St Paul`s, Mirfield;
1968 to St Michael`s, Carleton with St Stephen`s, East Hardwick, Pontefract.
These were his first held in plurality, followed by St Peter`s and All
Saints, Morley in 1978. In 1986 as incumbent of St Martin`s, Womersley
of Martin`s, Womersley and St Peter`s, Kirk Smeaton, he was given a
Canonry of Wakefield Cathedral. Retiring in1994 Stanley and Ann moved
only four miles, back to Carleton which they had left eighteen years
before and he was made Canon Emeritus.
In what is rumoured to be retirement,
Stanley devotes himself to locum tenens in churches where there are
interregna or illness. Ann has researched her family and the County
of Staffordshire for half of her life alongside duties to home, family
and parish and now devotes time to more intense research alongside the
R.B.F.O.; as well as to home and garden. Stanley is the lynchpin of
this work via the Internet. Both Stanley and Ann have been delighted
to receive visits from RBFO friends and kin, for some twenty years.
Their home is ever full of friends or their son Tim, his wife Catherine,
daughter Rebecca, husband Kevin, and grandchildren Matilda and Millie,
aged nine and ten; Rachel Holly aged twenty and Tom, twenty-two.
Note: Stanley M. Hind died on 23 July
2007.
One might have supposed
that from ten sons, Edmund Brough who married Rachel Cantrell on November
8, 1875, might have populated the world with Broughs, but no. Of those
surviving from an initial thirty-four children, only three were boys
and of those but one married, and was childless. It was from Edmund`s
Uncle Thomas Brough, born 1803, of Hazlewood that there are a further
four or five generations of the name of "Middlehulme."
This Thomas Brough of Hazzlewood House
Farm, second son of William Brough and Hannah Robinson, was turned fifty
years when he married Sarah Robinson, who was quite likely a relative.
He died in 1869 and his widow bought Little Bent Head on the Middlehulme
estate, for her three sons and daughter, all under ten years. The eldest
of the two sons who grew to adulthood was William who married Elizabeth
Grindy and farmed Hallows Grange at Wetton.From this line of Broughs
of Middlehulme and now at Cronkstone Grange and Rakeway Farm, Moneyash,
Derbyshire are:
1. William
Spooner Brough = Doris … sons Neil and Teddy.
2. Alec
Adolphous Brough=Mary Gould,one son,Tony.
3. John
Robert Brough = Mary Thompson,one son William.
4. Raymond
of Rakeway Farm = Ann Woolley Their sons are (I). Eric, has a son, Kirk.
(ii) Phil, has no children
(iii) Roy, with Andrew,Leslie, Derek and William, and (iv) Derek = Julie;
sons,Samuel and Benjamin.
5. James
Reginald of Rybrook, Grindon = Caroline Mycock sons Adrian and Winston
and two daughters
Audrey and Fiona
6. Frank=Vera
Boulton, daughter Margaret .
7. Joshua
= Emily …
8. Grace
n.1917
9. Florence
10. Sarah
11. Irene
n.1920 = William Cole.
The youngest son of Thomas Brough and
Sarah nee Robinson was Edwin, n.1869, the year his father died. He married
Clara Brunt in 1909, In adult life he tried a number of careers and
this shews in the varied places where his five children were born.
1.Edwin,
born 1910 at Bottom House, Leek,died 1973.
2. William
Spooner Brough, born 1913 at Stockport,Lancashire. His sons,William
Spooner Brough n.1934
and Christopher,n 1956, both in Leek.
3. Basil
Brough, n. 1916 at Manchester, no children.
4. Bertram
Brough (born 1919 at Rudyard, Leek, died 1998) was very well known as
a Postmaster, champion
Chrysanthemum breeder some seventeen years running and a respected member
of Leek
Congregational Church where the Silk Broughs were worshippers and benefactors.
Bertram married
Betty Jones, and their one son, Maurice Ian Brough (b.1948 ) = Shirley
Kent. They live in Cheddleton
with daughters Tymozin,born 1978 and Nichola,born 1981.
5. Freda,
Mrs. Altman.
The third son of William Brough and Hannah
nee Robinson, of Middlehulme was John, born in 1808. In 1845, John married
Martha Critchlow at Longton. Sons Joshua and John were born in 1849
and 1852; daughters Elizabeth in 1847 and Ella in 1861; their home was
New Cottage on the Middlehulme estate. The two Johns, father and son
were shoemakers, a trade pursued in Leek and Meerbrook. After the death
of John the elder in 1871 and the marriage of John junior, widow Martha
and her daughters moved and bought a house in Wood Street, Leek, leaving
New Cottage clear for son John and his wife Eve. They had only daughters.
Eve Elizabeth born in 1880 (died 1956) and Ella who died in May 1961,
both in the house in Wood Street. Two charming, knowledgeable ladies
of religious conviction and strong character, whom I remember for always
just putting something into, or just taking something out of, their
oven. It was a welcoming house of abundant hospitality and from Cousin
Eva and Cousin Ella (for they were grandfather's cousins not mine, nor
even fathers, so even he and his brothers addressed them by the formal
title) I first got my interest in our family and its history. When I
was in Leek as an evacuee after our home in London was twice-bombed
[during World War II], they took me around Leek and shewed me where
Broughs had been, and told me what they had done, not only for themselves
but for their district and their neighbours.
We have followed the descendants of two
of the three sons of 18th c William Brough [who married Mary Barber
in 1756] of MiddleHulme, Calton Moor Crossroads and the Red Lion there.
William the oldest at MiddleHulme; James, founder of the Brown Paper
and Box Company in Leek, the youngest, and now John, n 1760, the middle
son.
The following paragraphs are from the
work of Mr. George Lovenbury , Leek Historian:
John Brough (chr.1760) married Mary Hulme
of Lower Tittesworth, Leek on December 22, 1801. Although John Brough
farmed both Lower Tittesworth and Frithbottom, Leek, he apparently did
not intend for his sons to remain farmers all their lives. In 1815,
John Brough established himself as a silkman in the Mill at the lower
end of Union Street in Leek (in what later became part of William Milner
and Company), and encouraged his three sons to enter the silk business
after their graduation from school.
It is interesting to note that John Brough
and his three sons were free-churchmen, in fact Congregationalists,
and are buried in the Non-Conformist graveyard at Mount Pleasant Wesleyan
Chapel on Clerks Bank. It is also worth mentioning that the New Chapel
of Leek, later called the Temperance Hall on Union Street, was built
in 1833 at a cost of 1,300 pounds, and that the Ashton and Brough families
were generous contributors. However, the Congregationalists desired
a larger chapel and built the one today on Derby Street. On July 7,
1862, the third and youngest son of John Brough, John Brough Jr. (chr.
1809), laid the cornerstone for the Derby Street chapel, and there is
no doubt that the Brough family were generous contributors to the cost
of this building as well.
[Footnote to Mr. Lovenbury's paragraph
above: Ann Brough Hind states that "Nonconformity, especially Congregationalism,
went hand-in-hand with cloth mill-owning and usually Liberal politics-especially
in Yorkshire and Lancashire." She continues:]
Of John Brough's three sons, James Brough
(chr. 1804) died in 1854 only three years after his marriage to Margaret
Jane, daughter of Richard Muccleston of Shrewsbury. His first son was
James Rowland Brough,n. 1852. He married Fanny Gertrude, daughter of
James Tidmarsh of Highbury, county Middlesex in 1881.Their first son,Wilfrid
James, born in 1882 was followed by Cecil Hubert, Maurice and Harold
Gordon, and five daughters.
James Rowland Brough had an illustrious
career and on a far wider stage than that of his Leek cousins,even that
of Joshua, Leek's Grand Seigneur! He was educated privately and at Tettenhall
College. His initiation into business life was in the family silk firm
in Leek and London until he transferred his interests to a partnership
into a wholesale stationers and paper merchants under the style of A.J.Brown
Brough & Co.,London, Leicester and Melbourne, with London offices
in Warwick Lane and warehouses in Clerkenwell.
Like many successful businessmen James
Brough entered keenly into the corporate,municipal, educational and
philanthropic life of the City and Metropolitan Boroughs. In 1898 he
was elected into membership of the City Council and chosen as Chairman
of Library and Art Gallery and Central Markets.On the visit of the German
emperor to the Guildhall on Nov. 13th,1907, Mr. Brough received from
the Imperial guest, the distinguished honour of the Order of the Crown
of Prussia, Second Class. In December, 1912, he was appointed Alderman
and the distinction of a Lieutenancy of the city of London and President
of the United Wards Club of the City of London. From 1900 he was Alderman
and Mayor of Stoke Newington Borough and for twenty-five years Chairman
of the County Council Education Authority and in many philanthropic
works for the unemployed, as Chairman of the finance committee.
A member of the Council of L'entente Cordiale
Society and the Anglo-German Club of Cologne , he traveled widely in
Europe ,the United States, Canada ,the Holy Land ,India, Egypt , the
Middle East and Canary Isles. His hobbies were shooting and golf, books
and pictures. He was a member of the British Astronomical and Quekett
Microscopical Societies.
John Brough Jr. (chr. 1809) was a Justice
of the Peace and married Sarah Gill in 1843. John and Sarah had a son
named Edwin Brough (born in 1844) who was in the silk manufacturing
business for several years, but eventually left Leek. He married Helen,daughter
of John Graham, deputy Master of the Royal Mint.Her health began to
deteriorate and she and Edwin built their great house,named Windygates,
near Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coast. Edwin was internationally
known as a famous breeder of Bloodhound dogs. Experts came from America
in the 1880's, but as they wanted to cross them with the Cuban Hound,
bred not just to track a man and hold him, but to bring him down, he
[Edwin Brough] refused them and they returned empty -handed. At the
turn of the Century (19th/20th), the London Commissioner of Police invited
Edwin to take hounds up to London in an attempt to track down the notorious
Jack the Ripper. This had no success, but as Family correspondence shews,
Edwin always thought it impossible for his hounds to find a scent of
one man (especially the right one!) weeks too late and where thousands
had walked since. He was, however, pleased to note that no further murders
occurred during the period when his hounds were known to be in London.
Both Helen and Edwin died in the 1920s in Folkestone on the South Coast.
John Brough's oldest son,
Joshua Brough (chr. 1802), was perhaps the best known of John's three
sons.Joshua Brough (chr. 1802) was a very kind, public spirited man.
In 1837, Joshua Brough married Harriett Littlehales of Erdington and
they had a daughter named Mary (born in 1839 and who married John Beavis
Brindley, first Recorder of Hanley) and a son named William Spooner
Brough (born in 1840) who became a well-known English artist and scholar.
Like most Non-Conformists, Joshua Brough was a liberal and Free-trader,
and was active on the committee set up in his community to press for
the repeal of the Corn Laws. Joshua was the secretary of this particular
committee from 1840 to 1846, when it was disbanded. The following description
of Joshua Brough has been given by Mr. G.A. Lovenbury, a Leek historian:
"Joshua Brough, a J.P., was the most
important of the three sons [of John Brough]. In 1850, at the Mechanics
Institute there was a Penny Bank set up to encourage thrift-and here
again Joshua Brough was the secretary. He was a commissioner under the
Leek Improvement Act; he erected the Buxton Spout and gave it to the
town 'pro bono publico' as the legend on it states. In 1853, Joshua
and [his brother] John Brough [Jr.], as representatives of the female
line of the Davenport-Hulmes, bought Hall Haye Hall, which Dr. Davenport-Julme
had built about 1790, to keep it in the family. Joshua Brough lived
at Buxton Villa and retired in 1868 at the same time as his brother
John. If the engraving of Joshua in Sleigh's history [book] is anything
to go by he must have been among the kindest of men. It was Joshua Brough,
it will be remembered, who engaged Joshua Nicholson in 1837 to be a
representative of J. & J. Brough and Company, and these two Joshuas
played a big part in the rise and prosperity of Leek as a silk town.
J.& J. Brough and Company became Brough, Nicholson & Company,
and later Brough, Nicholson & Hall, Ltd."
William Spooner Brough (born
in 1840) has been described as follows by Leek historian Mr. G. A. Lovenbury:
"And now we come that great character
William Spooner Brough, only son of Joshua [Brough] who was born in
1840 and educated at Leek Grammar School and Mill Hill School, London
N.W.7, the Non-Conformist public school. He left Mill Hill at sixteen
and joined the family [silk] business as a bound apprentice in 1856.
In the year 1868, when his father [Joshua Brough] retired, he was made
a partner [in the family silk business] at the same time as his cousin
Edwin Brough and John Hall.
"In 1880 [William] retired (at the
age of 40) to devote himself to his first love, which was art. That
same year he built the house Littlehales on the Buxton Road and soon
afterwards went to London where 'he was engaged in decorative art and
in the study of black and white.' Also in London he and his friend Thomas
Wardle (later Sir Thomas Wardle) of Leekbrook had an art shop in Bond
Street.... He amassed a fantastic collection of oils, water-colours,
prints, etchings and engravings. He also had a collection of fine books.
He was not only a collector and bibliophile, he was also an artist.
In 1908 he loaned 256 pictures for exhibition at Trentham Hall, including
a dozen examples of his own work in water-colour-and that did not include
his larger pictures, his etching, prints or engravings....
"[However,] it must not be assumed
that art was all [William] thought about, for he was a man of many parts.
For a period of twelve years he was secretary of the Mechanics Institute;
he was a County Councillor from its formation and was a County Alderman
at the time of his death. He was a Justice of the Peace. He had been
Chairman of the County Lunacy Committee and was greatly involved in
the erection of Cheddleton Mental Hospital. For years he had been Hon.
Secretary of the North and South Staffordshire Discharged Prisoners
Aid Society. In 1883 he was appointed a County Justice and was a Visiting
Justice at Stafford Goal [jail]. On his death it was said of him: 'Of
his public work he would prefer to be remembered chiefly for his care
of discharged prisoners.' Many owed their reclamation to him, [although]
some of his efforts ended in failure. He laughingly, but not without
a note of sadness, told the story of a discharged prisoner to whom he
gave a new start in London. At Euston one day he met his protégé
who 'kindly offered to carry his bag.' [William] never again saw his
protégé or the bag!
"For some years [William] was Captain
of the Leek Fire Brigade [and gave the town its Fire Engine.] In 1879
he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He was a botanist
and a member of the North Staffordshire Field Club, being President
in 1878. In 1898 he laid out and planted The Waste, which he gave to
the town [of Leek]. He opened his garden, on land adjoining Littlehales,
to the public for their pleasure; he planted the avenue of trees which
made the Buxton Road the finest approach to the town [of Leek]. In January
1913, [William] gave the land of Ball Haye for a park, but owing to
the war it was not ready to be opened for another decade-in 1924 in
fact, seven years after his death in 1917. In his Will he left three
houses in Ball Haye Road to be sold, and for the proceeds to form a
Charity. The property realized 1,000 pounds and the money was handed
to Trustees to invest and administer. This was quite a sum in 1918!
"William Spooner Brough] died on
5th November 1917 shortly before his 77th birthday. That morning he
was wheeled in his Bath-chair for the last time when taken to Leek Cemetery
to place flowers on the grave of a servant who had died a year before.
That performed he returned to his home and died of a seizure later in
the day. He had never married and his heir was his sister's son Harold-Hulme
Brindley...."
The following section by
the late Mr John A.R.Brown,whose kin these are: James Brough (chr.1770),
the youngest son of William Brough and Mary Barber of Middlehume was
a carpenter-joiner in Doveridge when he married Ellen Land in 1811.
Her father was a wheelwright and it may well be that James learned his
craft from him and married his daughter. Of their four sons, little
is known of Thomas, William and John, born between 1814 and 1830. But
it was the second son Henry, born 1816, who made a mark upon Leek.
As a young boy, Henry Brough (chr.1816)
became a silkworker for his Uncle John, but in his early twenties he
took premises in Russell Street, Leek, and set himself up as a buttonmaker.
He manufactured silk buttons for the trade and contracted much of it
out to Moorland famers' wives, who each Wednesday would take bone buttons
and silk home with them and return with them next Market Day.
By 1841, Henry Brough had married Mary
Abbott, daughter of the head of an old Leek family, and they made their
home in Buxton Road. He also expanded his enterprise by opening a paper-box
works so that now he was trading both the buttons and the means of packing
the fabrics made by his uncle and cousins. Obviously, he had seen a
need and fulfilled it.
Henry Brough and Mary Abbott had four
sons and a daughter, born between 1842 and 1857. Henry became a teetotaler
and a pillar of the Congregational Church. He was by then long devoted
to working for the Mechanics Institute, with its library, educational
facilities and savings schemes to encourage workers thrift. He became
the Secretary of the Institute in 1846, and whilst diligent he was also
strong-willed and known to be amiable so long as he was getting his
own way.
Edward, the eldest son of Henry Brough
and Mary Abbott, became a clerk to an attorney. In his thirties, Edward
died of the effects of drink upon his liver.
James (Jimmy) Brough, the youngest son
of Henry Brough and Mary Abbott, joined his father's box business in
his teens. In 1876, the business expanded into purpose-built factory
premises in Stockwell Street, trading as H. Brough and Son. His mother
called him "such a pretty child" and the favoritism continued
until now.
Charles Brough (chr.1844), the second
son of Henry Brough and Mary Abbott, saw that "Pretty Jimmy"
was being groomed to take over the family firm. So when Jimmy inherited
everything after his father's death, the family split for the whole
of their lives.
Charles Brough was like his grandfather
James Brough (chr.1770)-a skilled joiner and cabinet-maker in Leek.
Charles had hoped that his son Harry would join him to carry on the
business in Leek. But Harry Brough (chr.1869), refused to accept any
commission that he thought beneath his skills. "We are cabinetmakers
not carpenters" he would say with a sniff. He would take offense
at the slightest provocation. Anyone who spoke in a break in conversation
would get a withering look and be silenced with, "I am still speaking."
Harry even refused to be seen in the streets carrying a bag of tools,
and people were afraid to ask him as they knew he would be insulted.
Consequently, once Harry's father, Charles, could work no more, the
business failed.
After the business failed, Charles' wife,
Eliza Mellor, and his daughter Gerty, rolled up their sleeves and, taking
premises opposite Leek Cattle-Market, made a living serving meals to
farmers on Market Days and pies to silk-workers during the week. When
Charles' brother, James, died in 1930, the local paper reported on his
business and the Majestic cinema that he originally built up as a hobby,
adding a reminder that "Mr Charles Brough is his brother."
Charles Brough had three other daughters
whom he urged in dialect "It's time some o' you wenches was wed."--which
they all did in the 1890's. Only one son-in-law suited Charles, and
that was James Lilley, husband of Lucy. He founded a firm that was destined
to become international, and that was Pretty Polly Hosiery, in which
he was eventually joined by their son Norman.
In Memorandum: Catharine Ann Brough Hind remembers John Allan Russell
Brown
In conclusion, I wish to finish this portion
of the Brough history with acknowledgement of a lineage that has become
known within the Brough family as the Brown-Broughs. It began in 1879,
when a Prudential Insurance Agent named Harry Brown met Mary Ellen Brough,
daughter of Henry Brough (chr.1816), founder of the Button and Box Co.,
and sister to Charles the cabinet-maker and to James of the box works
and cinema.
Harry Brown and Mary Ellen Brough lived
in prosperous Handsworth, a suburb of Birmingham, and had six children,
one of whom was Herbert. They spent their holidays in Leek and cycled
to visit their grandfather, Henry, who was then in quiet retirement
in a small house in Leek and who delighted in seeing them.
In 1900, Mary Ellen died, and Harry Brown
had six motherless children to care for. He sent for his sisters to
come and help take care of his children. Harry was only forty-seven
when Mary died, and he decided to stop work and spend his life wandering
England photographing the tombstones of hymnwriters…taking with
him his son Herbert as his assistant.
Following the death of the eccentric Harry,
young Herbert Brown was at last free to pursue his own life. He went
to Leek and met his cousin Minnie Rushton, a grand-daughter of his uncle
Charles Brough. They married, stayed in Leek and set up a photographers
shop. In 1923, Herbert and Minnie had a son, John Allan Russell Brown.
In 1981, I wrote an open letter to the
Leek Post newspaper asking the whereabouts of a Brown-Brough or a member
of the Brown paper and box clan. There was no result. The following
year a historian wrote to me with a query, then again to thank me, and…"by
the way, are you aware of a Mr. John Brown who is very knowledgeable
on the Broughs of Leek?" I wrote straightway and asked him, "Are
you a Brown-Brough?" The next day I had a delighted telephone response.
We corresponded and researched together for ten years. He was a legal
mind and had done one type of research, while I, who must know why things
happened and what people did, took another route. Between us we had
a massive personal archive which we shared and continued to amass. It
was John Brown who told us of the 1668 Windygates attempt to take Middlehulme
from its heir, and within the written evidence he also provided names
of four generations of sons of Middlehulme found nowhere else, as well
as the probable answer to the early RBFO search for a "missing"
Richard Brough.
Mr. John Brown insisted that I must never
use his name, embarrassed to be thanked. However, I was ever conscious
that substantial evidence was found by him and we would still be searching
blind alleys without his diligence and acumen. One of his daughters,
Mrs. Barbara Mutch, contacted me in 1993, with the sad news that he
had suddenly died. Yet, since his death and up to the present time,
I--and members of the RBFO--have frequently consulted his early records
and analysis of situations in an effort to keep our facts straight and
solve our mutual genealogical and historical problems. Hence, I feel
it necessary to acknowledge the tremendous contributions that John Brown
has made to documenting and understanding Brough genealogy and history;
for without him we would know much less than what we do today.
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