Trying to solve the “Thomas Brown of Eltham” challenge ..... a story from Edward Pick

Xmas 2020 was a good opportunity to try to respond to a puzzle about Thomas Brown, the 19th century butler from Eltham who was featured in Andrew Simpson’s blog post of 16 December 2020.

Kentish Mercury Friday July 24 1885

Brown had attracted Andrew’s attention because he was not just a butler, he was also an accomplished photographer. This was an expensive and perhaps surprising hobby for a servant. Brown’s pictures (“labelled as Thomas Brown of 2, Lorne Terrace, Eltham”) have been preserved in the National Archive in Kew, and they provide a fascinating view of a bygone Eltham, including a photograph which included a shop sign for “Thomas Brown”. 

Andrew wanted to know the approximate date of this photograph, and also wondered whether the photographer and business proprietor were the same person. He also noted another Thomas Brown living just off the High Street in Sun Yard who was a gardener and road worker and wondered if he was somehow related.

When I read the post, I wrote to Andrew Simpson with some newspaper cuttings which I had found in the Kentish Mercury, which are either advertisements for staff wanted, or servants advertising themselves as potential employees all with the response address being to Thomas Brown, Stationer, Eltham.

Local newspapers provide an enormous insight (even though they can be less reliable than official documents) and in the 1800s the local papers were an important source of communication for communities.

Andrew asked me to write a follow-on blog post about what I found.

38 Court Yard

As we chatted online, Eltham went into a second COVID-19 lockdown, and my original Christmas plans disappeared to be replaced by Andrew’s infectious enthusiasm for researching Eltham history.

Thomas Brown, the stationer

It seems entirely likely that Thomas Brown the stationer and Thomas Brown the Butler/Photographer are one in the same. But Thomas probably didn’t do the work despite the business being in his name. It seems more likely that his new wife did.

“Thomas Brown, stationer, Eltham” advertisements appeared from 1884 the year when Thomas Brown married Lydia Thomas, a one-time barmaid who had worked at the New Tigers Head in Lee. And they ceased in 1888 when Lydia gave birth to their first daughter Mabel.

This was a time of great change for Thomas who had lived with his employers, the Milne family in their grand house on Eltham High Street from childhood. He was a live-in 14-year-old page in 1871, and 24-year-old manservant in 1881.

I suspect that Thomas moved out of his employer’s house because he married. It’s difficult to prove but he also seems likely to have stayed in their employ, continuing in a new and more important sounding role of butler which befits his married status, but from accommodation in Cliefden House. 

Thomas’ good relationship with the Milne family is suggested by his choice of second name for his daughter. Mabel Henrietta Brown is surely a friendly nod in the direction of Henrietta Milne his widowed employer.

Henrietta Milne died in 1892. Her son and daughter in law, who had moved in with Henrietta when her husband Alexander George Milne died, now moved out.

The son retired to a rather grand (from the outside at least) apartment in Court Yard next to Eltham Palace. 

Thomas also moved around this time to Lorne Terrace. Probably the two moves are connected. In the 1901 and 1911 censuses he continued to call himself butler and it is possible that he continued with the next generation of Milne family in their new home in Court Yard. 

38 Court Yard was home for the Milne family after they left their long term home in Eltham High Street.

Thomas Brown, the gardener

And what of the gardener living in Sun Yard? Well he was the butler/photographer/stationer’s father. 

I searched the newspaper archives and found an article from 1884 about Thomas Brown, the gardener from Sun Yard and wife Ellen who according to husband Thomas had given him a “severe blow on the head with a broom”. Thomas told the court that he “had had a great deal of trouble with her lately”. Ellen however said that he had hit her first with a shovel, and she had simply raised the broom in defence. Poor Ellen, who had history with the police was disbelieved and was fined £5. 

Death certificate Thomas Brown, 1911

Ellen died in 1895. She seems likely to have had a troubled life. After her death, her husband is admitted into Lewisham workhouse. In 1904 (there is no record of him in the 1901 census) his son is asked to pay for his care. He survives until 1911. 

Edward Peck © 2021

Location; Eltham

Pictures;  Kentish Mercury - Friday 24 July 1885, © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, Court Yard, 2020, from the collection of Edward Pick and death certificate, General Register Office, © 2021 Crown Copyright