THE BROWN FAMILY : Part Three

Francis Henry Brown  1869 - 1946

Francis Henry Brown, the second child of Henry Whitmarsh Brown and his wife Eliza was born in Colchester in 1869. Unlike previous generations of men in the family Francis did not take up a career which involved carpentry. Instead he went to work as a Postman.  In April 1891 he was a boarder in the home of  Jesse Howard and his wife Amelia at 29 Gilberd Street, Colchester. Both Jesse and Francis are described on the census as "Letter Carriers".  Jesse Howard had actually been appointed as a postman in November of the previous year while Francis Brown would not receive his appointment until August 1892.  Perhaps at the time of the census he was serving a probationary period.

No, this is not Francis but it is the sort of
uniform he would have worn in the Victorian
Post Office.

In 1895 Francis Henry Brown married Anna Laura Askew. Anna had been born in Boxted, Essex, in 1870 and we know a little about her parents.  Her father was John Askew, a gardener, and her mother was Anna Hepzibah Fallows.  John Askew had died in 1891 at the young age of forty-six and at the time of her wedding to Francis, Anna was living with her mother at 9 Hospital Road, Colchester.

Anna Hepzibah Askew
mother of Anna Laura Askew.

After the wedding Francis and his new bride moved into the house at 9 Hospital Road. At some point mother-in-law decided to move out and in 1911 we find her living at Dereham Place, 2 Lexden Road, West Bergholt, where she is listed as one of two live-in servants. It was a big house containing no less than fourteen rooms. I suspect, looking at the picture above (probably taken about this time) that Anna was the housekeeper for the owner, Emily Alice Wicks, the widow of a Colchester wine merchant. Anna Askew died in 1930.

Anna Laura Brown (formerly Askew)
1870 - 1944

Francis Henry and Anna Laura were to have three children, all girls : Mabel Laura (1899-1986), Vera Frances (1900-1977) and Gladys Mary (1911-2006).  Gladys married Robert Percival in 1946.

Gladys Mary Brown

14 August 1946. St.Mary at Wall, Colchester.  Gladys Mary Brown
marries Robert Percival.  Francis Henry Brown is second from the
right probably flanked by his two elder daughters.

Francis Henry Brown died shortly after his youngest  daughter's wedding.  In the next part I will be writing about Francis's brother, Alexander.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Family photographs from the collection of Mandy Field.