The Brinds,
a family history
Up until a few years ago, I'd met very few Brinds. My parents, my grandmother (a Brind by marriage) and the odd one who came our way. One year a Michael Brind called at our house in Leyton to check our electoral register entry, or census data, or some such thing. Perhaps he decided to call on us because we were Brinds? Another time I spoke to a woman who told me she had been to school with a girl called Jo Brind, but lately I've wondered if she meant Jo Brand, the famous English comedian.
My father also told a story about a television repair shop he went into when we lived in Bow in about 1960. He hadn't ever been there before and he hadn't given his name or address but the man behind the counter said: "Right Mr Brind shall we deliver the set?" Evidently there were some Brinds who looked like us somewhere nearby.
This was about all I knew when I embarked on the quest to trace the history of the Brinds. Like the Quest for the Holy Grail, this venture has no ending. There probably never was a single original Brind and even if there was it's unlikely he ever left any records. But the quest has brought to light one or two interesting facts and a host of cousins: notably Chris Willmore, who did so much of the work this history is based on.
The Brinds
Most surname dictionaries (there are several) associate Brind and similar sounding names (Brent, Brend etc.) with the medieval practice of burning or branding criminals. Some books say he was the person doing the branding, others that he was one of the branded. A few of the surname guides also point out that Brend was the word for burnt land. Brend could have been a dweller on burnt land, in the era of slash and burn cultivation.
Some guides also suggest the name could have a geographical origin, a native of the village of Brind in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Our family probably originates in Berkshire or the adjoining county of Wiltshire, not Yorkshire. Check through the birth certificates of Brinds born in the nineteenth century and you'll find that many of them were born in Berkshire/ Wiltshire. If there is a Yorkshire connection it is probably lost in the mists of history, but it could explain why some Brinds are a little blunt!
One theory puts the Yorkshire connection (the Hamlet of Brind) and the burnt land together. This goes something along these lines: Brind is listed in A H Smith's The Placenames of the East Riding of Yorkshire and York (English Placename Society Vol XIV. He states that it derives from the Middle English 'brende' meaning 'burnt' used as a substantive of 'a place cleared (or destroyed) by burning' and that a mutated form of the Old English 'brand' meaning 'the act or result of burning' might also be a possibility. He also lists variatioons of spelling: Brend(e) appeared in 17788-91, La Brend in 1254, Le Brend(e) in 1289, Brand in 1316, Brynd(e) in 1432 and Burne in 1650.
Outlines of English History, page 23, points out that between 1068-69 'The Great rising of the Saxons in the North under the two great Saxon chiefs, Edwin and Morcar, assisted by the Danes under Sweyn. William re-took York, bought off the Danish fleet and ravaged the country between the Humber and the Tees. So complete was the devastation that this part of the country was marked "waste" in the Doomesday Book... Most of the land belonging to the Saxons was confiscated and given to the Norman Barons.;
This devastation could have taken the form of burning and could have resulted in the hamlet of Brind getting its name. However, a lot more work needs to be done on this theory if it is to be accepted.
Registration of Brinds in Berkshire and Wiltshire
| Three decades | Births | Deaths |
|---|---|---|
| 1839-1869 | 144 |
69 |
| 1870-1900 | 168 |
75 |
| 1901-1931 | 153 |
111 |
This concentration of Brinds points to a common ancestor group of a small number of families living in the 16th or 17th century, probably in Wiltshire.
There are something under 1,200 Brinds in England and Wales today. This figure is based on birth and death figures and an average life span of about 80 years. Between 1970 and 1989 there were 313 Brind births and 264 deaths. Add births to deaths over two decades and multiply by two
313 + 264 x 2 = 1,154
and you get a rough idea of the total population today 1,154. In the whole of Greater London there are only 19 Brind households with listed telephone numbers (in the June 1992 issue of The London telephone directory).
Brind Registrations in England and Wales
| Years | Deaths | Births | Years | Deaths | Births |
| 1840-1849 | 65 |
84 |
1920-1929 | 75 |
161 |
| 1850-1859 | 82 |
122 |
1930-1939 | 119 |
140 |
| 1860-1869 | 77 |
119 |
1940-1949 | 102 |
202 |
| 1870-1879 | 85 |
143 |
1950-1959 | 107 |
141 |
| 1880-1889 | 71 |
187 |
1960-1969 | 124 |
181 |
| 1890-1899 | 95 |
199 |
1970-1979 | 123 |
164 |
| 1900-1909 | 94 |
206 |
1980-1989 | 141 |
149 |
| 1910-1919 | 116 |
181 |
1990-1999 | 132 | 151 |
_______________________________________________________________
There was a sustained increase in the number of Brinds up to the 1980s (more births than deaths). The number of births went up by about ten a decade until about the First World War. After that the tide slowly turned. Births decreased and the number of deaths caught up. But, rather surprisingly, there are still far more Brinds being born than dying, in England and Wales anyway!
However, registration in the first half of the 19th century was not as certain a business as it is today. It has been estimated that one in ten births were not registered in those early Victorian years. If true that would mean 32 would have to be added to the 325 births between 1840 and 1869 to bring the total to 357!
Some confirmation that the Brinds come from Wiltshire (and therefore a small family group) was provided by the 1881 census. In the mid 1990s the Mormons transcribed the entire 1881 census and published it (in alphabetical form) on a county by county basis. It therefore became possible to collect a more or less complete list of the names of Brinds living in the UK in 1881. There were 446 of whom the oldest was 90-year-old Margaret Brind of Winchester. Their average age was just a shade over 25.
Looking at the 47 males aged 40 or over, 44.7% said they were born in Wiltshire, 19.1% in Berkshire, 8.51% in each of Middlesex and Kent. The remainder were born in six different counties.
Evidence also emerged about one group about whom so far no information has been gathered at all, the Welsh Brinds. The oldest of a group of Brinds living in Monmouthshire in 1881 was John Brind, a 74-year-old retired farmer who was born in Wanborough, Wiltshire. In Middlesex and Kent the picture is nothing like as clear but the oldest male Brind in Middlesex was born in Berkshire.
University College London (UCL) researched the the distribution of surnames in Great Britain, at two dates 1881 and 1998, using the census of 1881 and modern marketing data. See http://www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames/
 |
1881  |
 |
1998 |
Publication of the 1881 list also gives the opportunity to check the formula for calculating population.
Registrations between 1860 & 1879
Deaths = 162.
Births = 262.
Total = 424.
Given a life expectancy of about half the current 80 there is no need to multiply by two this time. The total of 424 is really very close to 446 and since the census includes Scottish Brinds and the births, marriages and deaths indexes examined only cover England & Wales, the two may be very close indeed.
 |
General Sir John Edward Spencer Brind KCB, CMG, DSO, 1878-1954. |
An extremely thorough Brind family history was assembled by General Sir John Brind, in March 1936, (see appendix 1).
| Main index | Appendix 1 |
This states that the Brinds originate from the N.E. corner of Wiltshire in the 15th century. This is very probably true but if there is any connection between my family and the General's it goes back a very long way. A second Brind family history, written by Paul Eustace in 1985 (appendix 2) comes to the same conclusion.
| Main index | Appendix 2 |
 |
Admiral Sir E J Patrick Brind 1892-1963. |
The oldest direct ancestor I found is an agricultural labourer called Zebulon. Chris Willmore of 3 Church Farm Close, Yate, Bristol BS17 5BZ, however, has traced our family back to a Thomas Brynde of Wanborough, born just before 1500. In Wanborough there was once a Brinds row in the church yard. There is also a row of Brind graves at Aldbourne.
The beginning
In 1566 Thomas Brynde transferred (or according to the legal term used at the time, alienated ) the title of the manor of Stanton Fitzwarren and Stanton Fitzherbert. This manor had an advowson or church benefice which meant Thomas had a role in selecting the vicar of Stanton in Stanton and Marston. The buyers of the manor were Thomas and Anthony Hynton. Eight years later Thomas Brynde obtained the title again so he probably alienated it in order to borrow money using the manor as a security. Perhaps he was buying land.
Stanton Fitzwarren and Stanton Fitzherbert are villages in the plain below Wanborough, Wiltshire.
According to records found in the Newbury museum in 1990 and then transferred to Wiltshire, Thomas Brynde finally sold the manor just two years before his death. His wife Agnes inherited a life interest in his estate when he was murdered in 1577.
Thomas made his money from sheep, the boom industry in Wiltshire. In 1623 Thomas & Agnes's grandson John Brind, claimed a coat of arms. The arms consisted of three left hands coloured black and a crescent. The authorities refused to accept the claim and said it should be "better proven".
Chris Willmore says: "It may be they were an ancient family, entitled to arms, who had simply failed to keep the records to prove it. More likely they were part of the new middle class, who had acquired a coat of arms, alongside a new manor house, to pretend to ancient class."
Sir John Brind mentions in his notes that the coat of arms of the Wiltshire and Newport, Monmouthshire, branches of the Brind family are similar. This may suggests that they are both harking back to a genuine coat of arms. David Brind, nephew of Sir John, has written an enormous family history of Brinds. David has a family tree which traces his roots back to the 16th century. A lot of the material on this cd originates from David. His chapter on the arms question is in the sources document.
Parish Registers only go back 300 to 400 years. If you want to find out what happened even earlier, documentation becomes extremely scarce. The only people who left a lot of records of themselves came from the privileged classes. But there are a few documents which give snap shot records of more ordinary people. One of these is the North Wiltshire Mustering, produced in the reign of Henry VIII over 400 years ago. This lists able bodied men and their weaponry, useful information if you want to mobilise an army.
In the Town of Wanboroughe there is a Thomas Bryne (harness), the Parysshe of Elcombe has a Richard Brends (bill), at Okebourne Seynt George, there is a Thomas Brynde (bill), Aldebourn has a Richard Brynde (archer), Hygheworth a John Bryn (a harnes, bill, swerde and daggar) and Merston, an Edmund Brynde (horse & harnes).
More aristocratic Brinds include the already mentioned Henricus Brind who lived in the reign of King John (1199-1216) as well as Simon del Brend and Richard del Brynd, who both feature on the Register of the Freemen of York from 1272 to 1338. Perhaps these two gentlemen had something to do with the village of Brind in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
A Simon le Brind is said to have rebuilt Corfe Castle in 1327 he was probably the same as Simon Brinde of Rusteshall, who lived at about this time. There was also a Thomas Brinde of Rusteshall and a Thomas Brind of Wanborough in 1460 who could well have been the same man. Richard Brynd lived in Wanborough in 1487 and there was an Edmund Brynde of Highworth in 1543. A Thomas Bryde lived in Queen Elizabeth's reign. He may be the same person as the Thomas Brinde who was murdered at Wanborough in about 1577. One of my favourites is John Brind of Wanborough who was fined 40 shillings for refusing to accept an order of knighthood on the coronation of Charles I.
circa 1200 Henricus Brind
1272-1338 Simon del Brend Freeman of York
1272-1338 Richard del Brynd Freeman of York
1327- {Simon le Brind Rebuilt Corfe Castle
{Simon Brinde of Rustehall, Wilts
Circa 1350 John Walter & Raised men, horses, billmen
Roger Brind pikemen & harness for Wars in France
1460 {Thomas Brinde of Rusteshall
{Thomas Brind of Wanborough
1487 Richard Brynd of Wanborough
Circa 1520 Thomas Bryne of Wanborough, Harness
Richard Brends of Elcombe, bill (N Wilts Mustering)
Thomas Brynde of Okebourne
Seynt George, bill (N Wilts Mustering)
Richard Brynde of Aldbourne, archer (N Wilts Mustering)
John Bryn of Highworth, Harness,
bill, sword & dagger (N Wilts Mustering)
Edmund Brynde of Marston, horse & harness (N Wilts Mustering)
1543 Edmund Brind of South Marston, will
1543 Edmund Brynde of Highworth
1543 Thomas Brynde of Wanborough, bought
Staunton Fitzherbert Manor, died 1577
1557 Johane Brind of South Marston, will
1574 William Brind of South Marston, will
1577 Thomas Brinde of Wanborough, murdered
(Tower 458, Darell paper fo. 55)
1625 John Brind of Wanborough, fined 40s for refusing knighthood.
| Main index | Appendix 4/ notable Brinds & bibliography |
____________________________________________________________________________
Brind [1 C. 22, 94; Lyte 89; Harl. 1165, 21a.] [No Arms in 1 C. 22] [Arms-Argent, a chevron between three sinister hands sable; a crescent for a difference.] (A Coate produced, but to the better proved.)
Thom: Brind de Wanborough in Com wilts===
| Antho Brind de Wanborough in Com Wilts. will pr, 27 Dec. 1578 [P.C.C. 6 Bakon) |
= | Sibell 1 Da: [et Coh Robt] Blount [de Stanham in Com Berks ex: familia de Mangeesfeild Com Glouc] |
| A | William | Margaret | Joan | Dorothy | Anne |
Anthony, mentioned by the Wiltshire Visitation of 1623, had six children: John his heir, William, Margaret, Joan, Dorothy and Anne. John was born and sent to Magdalene Hall, Oxford, as a plebeian student in 1562. He matriculated in 1574, aged 12. About that time Brinds purchased some land in Wanborough on which a house called Bakers was built. This was the family home until 1816. John married twice, first Emma, daughter of Nicholas Drewrie of Cholsley, Berks, and then Jane daughter of Sir Edward John Clarke of Ardington, Berks. He lived to a right old age and was still alive in 1623.
John's eldest child was a daughter named Elizabeth. She was to marry twice: her first husband was John Stichall of Swindon, her second John Lowe. His second child was a son, Nicholas, born in 1595. He married Margaret, daughter of John Olive (or Ayleeffe) of Gritnam in Wiltshire by special licence on March 9, 1612. He was only 17 years old. Chris Willmore says: "John had founded the clan in many ways. His was the name which lasted right through the family. In generation after generation the growing wings of the family named at least one son John." Nicholas's eldest son, born in 1619, was called John. Then came William (in 1621), Martha, Jane and Maria.
Nicholas's brother, Thomas, John's younger son, gave up his work as a mercer in London and returned to Wanborough where he died in 1653. But Thomas's son William stayed in London for the rest of his life. He died in 1694 in the St Giles district.
Nicholas stayed in Wiltshire. He died in South Marston in 1637 at the age of 42. This could be where the family started out from since there are three very early Brind wills on record from South Marston: Edmund Brind (1543), Johane (1557) and William (1574).
John, Nicholas's son, died in 1681 and from his will it is clear he was a gentleman with a comfortable life style. In fact throughout the 17th and 18th centuries there are records of Brinds carrying out land transactions, farming in and around Wanborough, Stratton St Margaret, South Marston and Highworth.
By 1851 the only Brind left in Wanborough or South Marston was Henry, then aged 60, visiting his daughter's family, the Fars.
Today it is almost impossible to read any of the old tombstones in Wanborough. Fortunately the 19th century church wardens of Wanborough kept a detailed record of where they buried people. One entry from January 15, 1839, reveals that a child called Thomas Minials had been buried in "Brinds' row".
Aldbourne, Wiltshire
The earliest Brind in the Aldbourne records is Richard, born in 1587, whose death is recorded on September 2, 1677. He could have been the son of William Brind, John's younger brother. If the records are right Richard lived to be about 90 years old, making him one of the oldest of male Brinds
By the 1650s there were at least five different Brind families in Aldbourne. Perhaps some of them were cousins? The most significant, from the point of view of this family history, are Thomas Brind and his wife Eleanor (nee Horne) who married in 1649.
Thomas and Eleanor were able to afford some education, for their sons at least since the boys could write. Theordy disappears, though he could have been the Thomas Brind, a shepherd, who had to pay 6s 6d for strips of land in the Common Fields of Aldbourne in 1703. On the other hand this Thomas could have been the son of William and Margaret (nee Walford or Watson) of Highworth. In 1674 aged 19 Thomas & Eleanor's eldest son John Brind was described as a fustian maker. In that year he took an 80 year lease for the use of Axplatt from Thomas Hatt of Aldbourne. Thomas Hatt was a yeoman who owned a farm.
"Thomas Hatt in consideration of £5 of lawful monies of England in hand paid by the said John Brind, and in consideration of the yearly amount hath granted to John Brind all that little tenement and dwelling house and yard garden in Axplatt," the lease says. The rent was 10s to be paid on the Feasts of the Annunciation and St Michael. Fustian was the growing trade in Aldbourne but John Brind was in on the ground floor. The Corr family, associated with fustian in village history, purchased their first plot seven years later in 1681!
William was 33 when he married Anne Griffin. She was very young, probably less than 16. They had seven children. The second eldest, John, was called Jonathan, perhaps to avoid confusion with Uncle John? He died at the age of 15, and another son born three years later, was named Jonothan. Ann died in 1730 leaving William a widower with a large family, including a child of 8.
A great many villagers died in Aldbourne in the years of 1729/30. Was there some illness? Brind victims included Ann (Thomas's wife), John Brind (a cousin?), Elizabeth (Richard and Francis's daughter), William the weaver, Anne (William's wife) and Thomas.
William's eldest son, William Jnr, survived at least until he was 76 years old when one of great the events of Aldbourne occurred, the great fire of 1777 (by coincidence this was the year the first really large scale map of Wiltshire was produced). By that time he was a widower living with his son Thomas's widow Ann.
The fire happened on Sunday August 24 and a large part of the village was burnt down. This was not the first fire associated with the Aldbourne factory. Brinds had been forced to rebuild their homes before when there had been small fires in the early 1700s. In 1777, however, it was estimated that over £10,000 of uninsured damage was done. It was a bad year for the Brinds. Richard Brind was the recipient of parish charity (1s) that Easter and Widow Brind (Jane nee Adams?) received the very substantial sum of 5s.
After the fire the rector and the Lord of the Manor immediately formed a committee to raise funds for the worst affected. A County Committee of eight, including Sir Ambrose Goddard, a local landowner, took up the fund raising effort. A London committee was also appointed with 12 people, including representatives of guilds associated with fustian.
William Brind, labourer and widower (aged 76) features amongst those who had suffered. He lost his home valued at £43 16s 9d as well as stock and goods valued at £13 2s. Ann Brind the daughter in law, a spinner (spinster?), lost stock and goods worth £2 15s 9d.
The various fund raising efforts produced nearly £2,000 but though the village was rebuilt it never fully recovered.
George married Francis Yeomans and had two children. Both died while they were still babies.
From the point of view of this story, however, the most significant son of William & Ann (Griffin) was the middle one, Thomas, a farm worker.
We know what happened to most of the children. Young Thomas died in Aldbourne in 1775, aged 35, having been a shepherd all his life. John died aged 13. Mary married John Fear by licence in 1773. They stayed in the village for a few years but finally moved away. Robert died of smallpox, unmarried at 26.
Henry lived until his early 70s and stayed in Aldbourne. He married Lucy Hidden in 1765. She was a local girl and they had two children, William in 1767 and Jane in 1769. William lived to be 26 but Jane died at the age of 18 months. Henry's wife Lucy died in 1785. He then married Anne Neate, a village girl, in December 1786 and she produced a son, Thomas, in March 1787. Young Thomas fell ill and died on December 28, 1788, and Anne his mother died two weeks later. Henry was a widower for the second time at the age of 45.
Three years later he married his sister in law Mary Neate, who was herself a widow. In 1801 Henry was widowed for the third time. When he died in 1814 there was no wife or child left to mourn him.
Richard and William both seem to have married women called Mary Dixon. The youngest, William, also lived the longest and when he died the vicar wrote the comment in the parish register: "A good Christian."
William had not earned that description because the family was a wealthy contributor to the church. At the end of the 18th century a 3d in the £ parish rate was levied for the repair of the church. The richest paid £1 or £2, the poorer a few shillings. The Brinds paid nothing at all. William, the good Christian, did manage to find 7s to buy a seat in the refurbished church in 1793.
No Brind in Aldbourne received poor law relief at any time, according to the parish records. Only two of them got financial help from the parish and that was in the Spring of 1777, the year of the great fire.
Not all Brinds managed to stay on the right side of the law, however. Ann, eldest daughter of William, the good Christian, was thrown into prison. She came before the judges at the Quarter Sessions on July 16 and October 5 and spent at least that period in Marlborough Prison.
Thomas & Jane's son Zebulon Brind and his wife Mary (Ventham) are the likeliest parents of a direct ancestor, also Zebulon Brind. Zebulon is, of course, a very rare name. So rare in fact, that many name dictionaries do not list it. It may have been a Jewish name. A Dictionary of Selected Jewish Names By Benzion C Kaganoff features Brand as a surname, but not Zebulon or Zabulon as given names. More likely it was a name used by the Plymouth Brethren or one of the other fundamentalist Protestant groups. In A Dictionary of First Names, by Patrick Hanks & Flavia Hodges, it says: "Zebulun origin/ meaning: uncertain may be Hebrew dwelling place. Biblical: The name of the founder of the tribe of Israel (see appendix 3) Zebulon was popular among 17th century Puritans in England and New England."
Zebulon senior died in 1826 in Aldbourne but his son moved on. Thanks to enclosure the great downs were becoming private fields. Fenced fields meant fewer shepherds and many of the Brinds had earned their living tending sheep. See Aldbourne poor's gorst charity, which gives a clue to what was happening to the surviving common rights in the 1820s.
| Main index | Appendix 3 |
There were 64 enclosure acts from 1740-1749, 472 from 1770-1779 and 574 in the first decade of the 19th century. The effect on the rural working class was described as catastrophic. Families who had depended on access to common ground became landless. "An amazing number of people have been reduced from a comfortable state of partial independence to the precarious position of mere hirelings, who when out of work immediately come on the parish," observed the Reverend David Davies, rector of Cookham, Berkshire, in 1795.
Of course enclosure wasn't bad for all Brinds. In East Hinton a distant relative called Lucy Brind was acquiring land as part of the carve up of the common fields. David Brind's ancestors also quoted "An Act for dividing and enclosing certain open and common Fields Common meadows common pastures and other commanable and waste lands within the parish of Highworth when claiming title to some land.
Beedon, Berkshire
Beedon is a village and parish seven miles north of Newbury and three north west of Hampstead Norreys Station on the Newbury and Didcot branch of the Great Western Railway (in the southern division of the Berkshire county hundred of Fair Cross).
In the 1906 Liberal landslide, Judge Frederick Mackarness won a surprise victory over Sir William Mount, a Conservative who had held the seat for 21 years. He had attacked "the power of the big house, the brewery and the parsonage, the influence of the farmer, the still lingering serfdom and consequent apathetic condition of the labourer, still by no means certain of the secrecy of the ballot."
In 1766 the poor of the town of Newbury rioted over the price of bread, inflated by the disruptions which followed years of war with France. In 1830 farm labourers took to the streets, burning and looting, to protest about mechanisation which was taking their jobs. In the Middle Ages Newbury's main trade was the manufacture of woollen cloth and in the 16th century it had what is claimed to be Britain's first weaving factory, with 200 looms under one roof. After 1520 the cloth trade faced increasing competition from overseas and Newbury suffered. Improvements to the road system in the 1670s and the running of a regular stage coach from London to Bath, revived its fortunes.
In the 18th century the river Kennet was progressively improved and Newbury Wharf became the centre for a busy barge service to London. The Kennet and Avon Canal was completed in the early 19th century and this allowed barges to travel from Bristol to London, via Newbury. The town became one of the most important inland ports. Not surprisingly the first railway line between London and Bristol chose a route well away from the high land values of Newbury. At the same time the town's stage coach business vanished.
Elizabeth Goodchild was the youngest of five children of Richard and Lucy Goodchild. She was generally called Betty, even the Vicar's church records of attendance at service used that name. Betty and Zebulon married at Catmore, where their first children, the twins James and John, where Christened. There were several Brinds living at (Lilley) Catmore, which is less than a mile from Beedon Common. One of them, a Thomas Brind, evidently had property as he is listed in the 1832 electoral register.
Zebulon and Elizabeth moved to Beedon shortly afterwards, where Betty's parents lived. Ten of their children survived to adulthood, the only exception being George who died at the age of three.
A farm labourer, Zebulon was probably mainly a shepherd, but he could turn his hand to other things. In 1823-4 he was paid 9s 4d (47p) for seven days work for the parish surveyors. His in laws, the Goodchilds, worked on the same road gang that year. In 1828, Zebulon's son William also received money for this work. ______________________________________________________________
Parish surveyors' payments.
amount/days worked
Zebulon William
Michaelmas 1820 5s/3 days
1823/4 9s4d/7 days
1824/5 4s6d/3 days
May 1827 1s/1.5 days
May 1828 7s/a week
______________________________________________________________
Zebulon's death certificate reveals that he died in Beedon, Berkshire, at the age of 75 on the sixth of January 1847. The cause of death was 'debility Not certified'. Debility means old age. Not certified means there was no doctor present. The certificate was signed by Ann Smith. Towards the end of her life Betty was a housekeeper for James Smith and his two sons living at Mount Pleasant, Beedon. Perhaps Ann was one of James's relatives?
In November 1848 the parish book records six widows receiving money. Betty got £1, a vast sum. At the same time 52 lbs of mutton was distributed to the needy. Betty got some and so did her sons Enoch and Stephen.
A month later on December 1, 1848, donations were sought for the Jubilee Fund of the Church of England Missionary Society. Incredibly Betty and Enoch were amongst the donors. Charles Dickens may have the solution to this problem. He talks of well to do benefactors subscribing to charitable funds in the names of other worthy, but less well off people. A total of £1 8s 8d was raised by the missionary society.
______________________________________________________________
Jubilee Fund
(Some of the donations made to the Church of
England Missionary Society)
The curate 1s
Mr Royals 1s
William Brind 4d
Enoch Brind 4d
Sarah Brind of Stanmore 2d
______________________________________________________________
Betty Brind 1d From the Common
Eliza Brind 1d " " "
Martha Brind 1d " " "
John Brind 1d " " "
Sarah Brind 1d " " "
______________________________________________________________
Jane Brind ½_d Elijah's daughters
Rachel Brind ½_d " " "
______________________________________________________________
After Zebulon's death Betty was the most regular attender at the Beedon church services apart from the vicar. Betty stuck to the Church of England. There were chapels in the area but she does not seem to have been interested. Each year the Vicar wrote a review of the number of people who took communion. On December 1, 1848, he wrote: "The Lord's supper was administered this morning in the Parish Church. The number of communicants was 19 which, according to the testimony of several, was the greatest for several years past. During the administering of the Holy Heart the Divine presence seemed to be enjoyed by each of the communicants."
Betty attended that service and was at communion almost every week after Zebulon died. Was she devout or was it that the Vicar handed out assistance to needy people, mainly widows, after the services? Betty was always on the benefit list. She generally did not get the most help, for example on Easter Sunday April 8, 1849, 16 people were given alms from the collection of 7s 5d. Betty got least, just 6d.
On November 15, 1849, a special service was held at Beedon Parish church for "Thanks giving to God for his great mercy in abating that previous disease the cholera with which many places in this Kingdom have been visited." The collection of £1 1s 10d went to Newbury Dispensary.
Zebulon Brind named one of the twins, his eldest sons, John (confirming that there is some substance to the aural tradition that the eldest son of the family is called John). John married Martha Wild when he was 27. His wife, the daughter of David and Elizabeth Wild, was born in 1799. John and Martha did not have any children of their own but they did bring up Mary Ann and Matthew, children of John's younger brother William.
William, born in 1801, married Maria, who was six years younger than him, at Beedon. They moved to Stanmore, north of the village, where William worked on a farm. Their first son Matthew was baptised on June 4, 1826, and on May 17, 1828, with Maria pregnant, William died. He never saw their daughter Mary Ann, who was baptised on September 7, 1828. Four years later Maria died so John and Martha took over the orphans, aged six and four. Matthew died in 1841 (when he was about 13) but Mary Ann grew up safely.
James, John's twin brother, married Mary Deacon on November 24, 1827. Richard and Lydia Deacon were part of the large clan of Deacons who lived at Chieveley, the big estate to the south of Beedon. Mary moved to Beedon to live with her husband and they had two sons, George in 1828 and James in 1831. William, their third son, lived just four days after his baptism in November 1833. In June 1834 James Senior died and Mary took the two children south to Chieveley . At first she lived with her parents but later they moved in with her aunt and uncle, Abraham and Amy Deacon.
Zebulon, Betty and Zebulon's third child, married Leah Holdin at Wantage on November 2, 1822. They had two children John & Phoebe. Leah died in 1829, leaving Zebulon to bring up the children alone. In 1841 he was living alone in Catmore with Phoebe. According to the census of that year Pheobe is supposed to have been ten years old, but she was at least 12. Perhaps Zebulon got the age wrong because he didn't want her to grow up and leave home! John kept the Zebulon name going by naming his second son Zebulon Brind: born 29/10/1852, died 30/12/1878 (registered St George, Hannover Square, London). This last of the Zebulon Brinds only lived to be 26 and had no children. But John had ten children, including four sons, two of whom (John the eldest son and William Henry the youngest) had large families of their own. See FTMAVIS.
Enoch or Enock married Eliza and they lived in Stanmore. They had one son, Henry born on May 21, 1848. Eliza died a few years later and in 1856 Enoch married Emily, who was 22 years younger than him. Emily came from Hampton Norris and the couple moved away from Stanmore.
The son of Zebulon and Betty we are most concerned with was Elijah (sometimes spelt Elijha). He was an agricultural labourer and lived all his life in Beedon.
Elijah was illiterate but his wife Sarah could write. They lived south of Beedon by the kilns and close to Zebulon and Betty. Elijah had more children that his brother and sisters put together, ten in total. Zebulon and Betty had moved to a cottage close to the kilns when their own family had moved out. There were 126 people there in 26 cottages, all labourers of one kind or another. Zebulon owned the cottage which was rated at an annual value of £1 2s and he actually paid 17s a year rates.
When Betty was 65 she and Zebulon were living with Elijah's three eldest children.
In January 1848 the Rector paid out gifts of tea, bread and sugar to the value of £2 to 'receiving widows and infirm persons'. Betty wasn't a widow but she was on the list of recipients. She got about 2s worth.
On 8 October, 1848, the Beedon School Book reveals:
"88 children of the parish of Beedon assembled in one of the barns belonging to Mr Matthews of Stanmore Farm, where they partook a very excellent tea. After which they were presented with Bibles, Testaments, Prayer Books etc. in consideration of their regular attendance during the past year at the Parish Classes both on Sunday and the week day."
Emma Brind, aged 10, came third. She was the top girl and had attended 144 sessions. She was given a bible valued 1/-. Rachel came 31st with 68 attendances. She got a book worth 4d. Charlotte came 45th with 30 attendances and got a 2d book.
The children had to pay 1d a week to attend the school and in 1848 the fees raised £5 10s 3d. This sum, together with a donation of £2, covered the cost of the school.
In 1861 Elijah and Sarah had a three month old grand-daughter living with them called Elizabeth Brind who was born in Speenhamland. She was the child of Jane, born illegitimately when Jane was just 17. Jane had gone into service and. Four years after the birth, in 1865, she married.
Interestingly there were two Brind families in Speenhamland in 1861. Stephen Brind, 29, was living at The Lane, Wood Speen East, Berkshire, in the Parish of Speenhamland. He gave his occupation in the census of that year as pastor &c (Wesleyan Local Preacher). He was married but living on his own that day. There was also Robert Brind, aged 24 a grocer and tea dealer, and his wife Rachel (29) who had a one year old daughter called Grazilda Jane Brind. Did Jane go to stay with one of these families while she had the baby?
So far as I know no photograph survives of Elijah and Sarah but according to Emma Louisa Brind (Chris Willmore's grandmother) he was a funny old man with a long white beard.
______________________________________________________________
Male/female Brind births
| Female | Male | %Male | |
| 1837-1849 | 51 |
56 |
52.34% |
| 1839-1869 | 140 |
191 |
57.7% |
| 1837-1899 | 417 |
457 |
52.29% |
| 1900-1939 | 336 |
352 |
51.16% |
| 1837-1939 | 753 |
809 |
51.79% |
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In 1861 John worked in the stables as a groom. Henry, his Uncle Enoch's 13 year old son, was a plough boy in the same big house at Beedon. William, then aged 12, was a plough boy in Chieveley.
Elijah and Sarah's gravestone still stands in Beedon Parish Church. It is a magnificent tombstone. Chris Willmore guesses, and I'm sure she's right, that his son John, by the time of Elijah's death a stonemason, had contacts in the trade.
Hammersmith
By 1871 William and John had moved to Union Court, Hammersmith. Union was a common name for alleys which simply connected one road to another. William and his wife Harriet and their five month old daughter Elizabeth were living at 4 Union Court lodging with Harriet's mother, a 74-year-old widow called Elizabeth Thomas, born in Chorbury, Oxfordshire.
Next door at 5 Union Court lived another direct ancestor, laundry woman Sarah Hall, a 51-year-old widow, and her sons Daniel, a 20-year-old plasterer, William, a 16-year-old labourer, six-year-old Charles, daughters Elizabeth, 13, Eliza, 10, and a family of four lodgers.
Sarah Hall was the mother of Sarah Catherine Hall (pictured below) who married John Brind at St Peter's Church, Hammersmith, on July 12, 1868. Both John and Sarah gave their address as Union Court on the marriage certificate but they had moved from there by 1871.
Sarah (Snr) had seen better days. In 1861 she was living in Union Court with her husband, Journeyman Smith Joseph Hall. All the children were listed as son of Smith or daughter of Smith, as if that was all the occupation any person of that station would need. In 1861 Sarah had no need to work as a laundry woman, or take in lodgers. Both the blacksmith and his wife were born in Hammersmith.
Eventually Sarah (snr) ended up living in the almshouses behind the huge Carnegie Library in Shepherds Bush Road. John and Sarah Brind's daughters were often sent to the almshouse do the shopping but were instructed never to take money. One day Lyde and Hetty had to run some errands. Hetty accepted money. Lyde told. There was a big row and they never got on till the day they died.
One of Sarah & Joseph Hall's daughters married a boatman (probably F S Keen, who is mentioned in the West London Observer of March 4, 1898, as a stroke in a Hammersmith rowing club event). The couple owned the boat yard (this might have been something to do with Biffen & Son's boat house, which was apparently a very famous place in boating circles) at the back of Hammersmith Bridge. They used to sit up on the roof of the boat house and watch the boat race. According to family legend he is supposed to have won the Doggett's Coat & Badge, a Thames race. But F S Keen is not listed as a winner of this event. Perhaps there were minor events within the major event and he won one of those?
In 1851 Sarah and Joseph Hall were living at 2 Charlotte Place, Hammersmith, an area where there were an awful lot of police houses. Joseph was then 28 and working as a blacksmith. His wife was three years older than him. Their eldest son, also Joseph, was five years old. Sarah and Joseph Hall Senior were both born in Hammersmith in the 1820s. Joseph was probably a pupil at Latymer Upper. There is a record of a Joseph Hall, born 1822, who was a pupil at this school 1830-36. A second Joseph Hall, born 1845, who went to the same school from 1856-8 was very probably his son.
An article in the West London Observer of September 17, 1897, page 7, describes the Hammersmith of 1822, the year in which Joseph Senior was born.
"Vignettes of Local History. The following extracts are taken from an old Gazetteer which reached its third edition in 1822.
This is what is said about
"Hammersmith
"A village about three miles west from London. It has a church, several meeting houses and a nunnery....In Hammersmith Chapel is a bronze bust of Charles I under which in a marble urn is the heart of the loyal donor Sir Nicholas Crispe who invented the present mode of making bricks which were first used in building Bradenburgh (sic.) House. Here was buried Sir Samuel Morland mechanic inventor of the speaking trumpet in 1696; At Brandenburg (sic.) House, Hammersmith, on the 11th August 1821 died Caroline of Brunswick, Consort of George IV."
A second article in the West London Observer of February 2, 1895, page 6, describes the Hammersmith of just a few years later.
"On Monday evening a lecture was delivered by Mr Alfred Whitman of the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, to a large assembly in the Broadway Congregational Church.
The gathering was in connection with the Social and Literary Society and the Pastor, the Rev J L Brooks, presided.
I can give you some account of this borough 60 years ago from the lips of my father, who came to Hammersmith to be apprenticed in 1834 three years before Queen Victoria came to the throne. At that time standing near the main road near where Addison Road railway bridge now stands and looking northwards an extensive view could be obtained as far as Kensal Green and Kilburn. By the North End Road stood the turnpike gate which was not removed until about 1860. A little to the west was the old 'Black Bull Inn' from which the London omnibuses started. The companion inn, the Red Cow, still remains. From Brook Green to Rowan Road was market garden and Rowan Road itself was a footpath between hedgerows. A florist's garden occupied the space where Nazareth House now stands and where are today the West London Hospital and Elm Grove was then a large house standing in its own grounds called Elm Tree House, a boarding school for ladies. Hammersmith Workhouse stood where we see the Latymer School and an old Benedictine Convent was to be found were the Roman Catholic College is. Round by the church was the thatched house of the neighbourhood, a good specimen of an old country house. The parish church was lighted with dazzling brilliance by common tallow candles and it was the duty of the beadle to go round and snuff them during the service. Orchards flourished on both sides of the Bridge Road and boys were kept at a safe distance by wooden fences. At the King Street end of the Grove was a Ladies School Grove Hall and from there to the Goldhawk Road were cornfields. On the west side of the entrance to the Windsor Castle Hotel was (and is) the old Ebenezer Chapel where Rowland Hill, among others, was accustomed to preach.
At the time all travellers and merchandise had to journey by road. There were nearly a hundred four horse coaches up and down the main street during the day besides numerous wagons drawn by teams of six and eight horses; and in the evening about 9 o' clock eight mail coaches passed through the town on their way to the west. William IV was frequently to be seen going to Windsor and he always travelled over Hammersmith Bridge instead of through Brentford as at the latter place he was once insulted at the time of the Reform Bill.
At the close of the lecture a very hearty vote of thanks was recorded to Mr Whitman."
John and Sarah Catherine Brind were married at St Peter's Church, Hammersmith, on July 12, 1868, and had moved to 2 River Terrace, Hammersmith, by 1869, when John was born. The family continued to live here for more than a decade. On 23 June 1881 they moved to 7 Colvin Street, which is where John spent the rest of his life.
Built in 1869 or 1870, Colvin Street ran from Glenthorne Road to some railway arches where the road came to a dead end. It was near King Street and Beadon Road.
Colvin Street does not exist any more, it's a car park. Even so it's possible to find out a little bit about what life was like there in the 1890s from the 1891 census and the pages of the West London Observer.
One common theme in these reports is the clothing trade. Martha Heard was a dressmaker, Henry Jones was a tailor. One of John and Sarah's daughters (Emma Louisa b 3/10/1884) went to Chelsea Polytechnic to study dress making and dress design. She worked for a dress making firm in London. She married George Louis Fasquelle in 1906.
More personal information about what life was like in the Brind household is hard to come by but Chris Willmore tells the story that John would come home on a Friday night and would always bring kippers and regularly as clockwork his wife would hit him with the kippers.
Victor (son of William George, John and Sarah's youngest son) said they were reasonably well off because they used to be able to buy food in quantity
Chris Willmore also tells a family story about the two oldest boys Jack and Charlie, who she says were fair haired. One day Sarah was taking the two eldest boys back to Beedon to visit the grandparents. She was stopped while walking from the station and questioned because they were suspicious about a little dark haired woman who had these two tall blonde children. These blonde boys just didn't look as if they belonged to her.
John could write but Sarah could not (she loved to have the children read books to her). The couple were determined to educate their children. Jack & Charlie (Teddy) the two eldest were sent to school. John and Sarah scrimped and saved to pay the fee, but by the time the younger ones came along (Nellie onwards) the School Board for London helped.
John, the eldest (known as Jack) did not mix much with the other children. He had been born six years before Charlie (Teddy), the next one to survive childhood. Then when all the girls came along, Charlie did not want to bother with them, though he was sad when his baby brother Albert died. By the time William was born in 1886, Charlie was 11 and John was 17 and already making a home of his own.
William, the younger brother who arrived from Beedon with John, married Harriet Thomas and they lived at 76 Union Place in Hammersmith Broadway from February 1875 until May 1877. They then moved to 2 Albert Cottages. Their eldest daughter, Emma, was born just before Charlie (Teddy) but Emma did not live. There after there was George (1877), Louisa (1879), Henry (1882), Alice (1884), Albert (1886) and Edward (1887) who all survived childhood.
William joined the Salvation Army and there is a story that when his father Elijah came to London to visit William his wife Harriet said 'he's at the Salvation Hall and I am not going to disturb him just to see you'. Was this the last time Elijah tried to see his son?
Chris has got a baby chair which is made of one solid bit of oak, which was part of the furniture at Colvin Street. Its base is worn hollow with age. When Chris's grandmother was a child it was the cat's chair by the fireside. It looks like a high chair which has been cut down.
John and Sarah were photographed in 1889. He had blue eyes (according to the colouring directions on the back of the photo). His hair appears to be curly and was probably brown. Sarah had dark hair. Unfortunately we don't know what colour her eyes were. The colouring directions don't survive.
In 1869 John was a labourer but by 1891 he had become a Journeyman Stonemason, a highly skilled building craftsman. Among other jobs, according to family legend, John worked on the Albert Memorial, completed in 1872. His career, however, had ups and downs and he lost one job because he supported a strike, according to Chris Willmore.
In his autobiography Henry Broadhurst, who was born in Oxford in 1840 just six years before John Brind, gives an idea of what it was like to be a stone mason in the latter half of the 19th century. He got a start in the craft because his father was a stone mason. In the mid 1850s he worked for a Mr Lloyd in Norwich who had a thriving business in church erection, renovation and gravestones.
"In Mr Lloyd's 'shop' I spent some of the happiest days of my life. The wages were only twenty-four shillings a week of sixty hours. If you were late in the morning you forfeited a quarter of a day's pay, not, as is now the case, simply half an hour's or an hour's wages, according to the time lost. On the other hand, there were many compensations. Frequently I have taken a half-holiday without any deduction of wages, and as frequently I gave a few hours' work late at night or early in the morning without putting it down as overtime. It was a give-and-take system, and I am not far wrong in saying that I took a great deal more than I gave, though always with Mr Lloyd's approval....
"During a period of terrible depression in trade— I think it must have been the winter of 1858/9— I left the city of Norwich in search of work on what proved to be a disastrous journey. My time of setting out was not well chosen, but necessity knows no law. I started about the middle of December, only to return after nearly four months' absence, during which I tramped about twelve hundred miles without succeeding in finding a single day's work....
"Before I started on this unfortunate journey I had been out of work for a week or two, so that my entire capital amounted to less than ten shillings, and I finished the tour with the sum of sixpence in my pocket. At no time during my progress did I possess more than ten shillings, and on many occasions I was without even a penny. My trades union (the Stonemasons' Society) had relieving stations in nearly every town, generally situated in one of the smaller public houses. Two of the local masons are appointed to act as relieving officer and bed inspector. The duty of the latter is to see that the beds are kept clean, in good condition and well aired, and the accommodation is much better than might be expected. When a mason on tramp enters a town, he finds his way to the relieving officer and presents his card. On this card is written the application's name and last permanent address. In addition he carries a printed ticket bearing the stamp of the last lodge at which the traveller received relief. He was entitled to receive a relief allowance of 1 shilling for twenty miles and three pence for every additional ten miles traversed since his last receipt of relief money. Thus, if fifty miles have been covered the man receives one-and-nine pence. In addition he is allowed sleeping accommodation for at least one night, and if the town where the station is situated is of considerable size, he is entitled to two or three nights' lodging."
In 1865 Broadhurst moved to London and found work with the sculptors, Farmer and Brindley, who were working on Government offices close to Downing Street. "My duty was to chisel down the rough blocks of stone as they were fitted in the building until they assumed the roughest outline of the intended decoration. Then the carver took up the work, shaping the stone in accordance with the artistic design until the finishing touches were given."
Broadhurst got a job roughing out the stone for the Clock Tower and a corridor which joined the Houses of Parliament. "The time of year was November, and the north-east wind blowing up the river made my task a cruel one," he says. "At times the bitter blast would numb my hands until it was impossible to hold a chisel. My very bones would be penetrated with its icy edge until I felt as if clothed in a garment of lace. Little wonder that I gladly went back to the mason's shop (George Meyer and Sons?), where some shelter, at least, was afforded."
He says he worked on many of the best known buildings in London including Westminster Abbey, the Albert Hall, St Thomas's Hospital, Burlington House, the Guildhall and residences in Grosvenor Place, Grosvenor Gardens and Curzon Street.
"In the spring of 1872 the men engaged in the building trades agitated for a reduction in the working house and an increase of one penny per hour in their wages," he says. "The union officials had given the usual six months' notice to the employers, the period to expire in the month of May; but the employers decided to anticipate the strike, and locked the men out. The result was a month of enforced idleness. I was elected chairman of the lockout movement in my own trade. Rarely, I suppose, in the history of labour disputes was a lockout conducted on a more amicable basis. No breaches of the law occurred and so quiet was everything that scarcely anyone save those interested in it was aware of its existence." The result was a pay increase of a halfpenny an hour, with a further halfpenny promised the following year if trade was good. The working week was also reduced from 56½ to 52½ hours for nine months of the year and 47 hours for the remaining three months. From this time onwards stone masons were able to stop work at lunch time on a Saturday.
It was John Brind, the stone mason, who was robbed by footpads. My father, Alan Brind's grandfather told him John was taking cash to pay builders on Hampstead Heath. As a stone mason he was probably one of the senior employees. Chris Willmore's grandmother or her Aunt Hetty (both sisters of Alan Brind's grandfather) said John was shot and injured outside Fulham Workhouse which is now the Charing Cross Hospital. The attack happened when he was riding a horse down the Fulham Palace Road, which is the main road past the hospital. Nobody can remember any more than that. Hetty made a tape recording on which she said John was treated by a doctor based near Hammersmith Bridge, perhaps Dr J Reid of 31 Bridge Avenue. Sarah had to change the dressing every day. Hetty said he went back to work but had not fully recovered from his injuries when he died.
It seems incredible that an event like this could have happened in Fulham Palace Road. It was an extremely busy road "the volume of traffic that passes up and down the Fulham Palace Road is extraordinary...as a result the macadam is churned into a sea of mud," complains a letter writer to the West London Observer of January 8, 1897.
According to his death certificate John Brind died of pneumonia on Sunday, July 23, 1899.
Chris Willmore says John came home from work one day and said 'I'm hot', sat at an open window and died. This day was probably one of the hottest of the century.
"Effects of the heat.
"Several cases of sunstroke have been reported this week as a result of the excessive heat. On Sunday Lily Woods aged 35 living at 43 Marboro' Road, West Kensington Park, was admitted to the West London Hospital suffering from sunstroke. She was found by police and taken to the hospital on their ambulance. On the same day Mr William Henderson of Shepherds Bush fell to the ground unconscious in Hyde Park and was conveyed to the hospital. In Piccadilly a young lady named Rosina Cartwright residing at South Kensington was over powered by the heat and fell into the roadway having a narrow escape of being run over.
"Deaths through the heat.
"At the Fulham Coroners Court Munster Road on Saturday afternoon Mr C Luxmore Drew investigated the circumstances surrounding the death of Charles Henry Kay aged 49 a starch merchant lately residing at 48 Walham Grove, who expired on Friday morning at the residence of his clerk in a sudden and mysterious manner....the post mortem showed congestion of both brain and lungs caused by the great heat."
West London Observer, July 28, 1899.
Victor's father was an architect's assistant for a year and then worked 50 years on the railways. Victor explains that he quit the profession "to get money. You see his mum was left a widow and she used to do church cleaning, they paid her poorly."
Sarah Catherine worked in the church to justify payments under parish relief, I believe. An early version of the American system known as workfare. She died on the night of the Silvertown Explosion in 1917. Her age was only 69 but she looked older than that in a photo taken of her ten years earlier. Victor (son of William George, Sarah & John's youngest son) was born a month before she died.
"The silvertown explosion was a terrific thing and he (Victor's father) thought all the munitions places had gone up," said Victor.
"It was a German firm that used to make the gas mantles... the rumour is that it was something to do with the Germans."
John and Teddy were both criticised for failing to support their mum and young William George. The two sides of the family stopped speaking to each other after 1899.
William George Brind, who won one of the first RSPCA book prizes, was 12 nearly 13 when his father died. When he joined the railways his first job was in the parcels office, then he was a guard and became a motorman on the Met by 1915. The family moved to New Cross in that year, perhaps as a result of the promotion. An active trade unionist he bought cricket stumps for his union branch during the General Strike of 1926. If they were playing cricket they couldn't get into trouble. He became secretary of the New Cross National Union of Railwaymen branch, which had a membership of over a thousand.
The Yarhams, the family of William's wife Florence, were staunch members of the Independent Labour Party. William & Florence's son Victor recalls that his grandfather Charles Yarham was only a little man but he had a good voice and he used to go along to the Labour Clubs and sing for his supper. He knew John Burns & Charles William both leading lights in the ILP and George Lansbury, a Labour celebrity.
"Chris Willmore's Gran and all her family thought the world of my dad," said Victor. "He was the brother they really knew because of the other two having the split....we used to meet before the war about once a year and go down to Southend when I was a kid."
Victor was drawn to the temperance movement and became a leading member. It cost a penny a week to join the society, the Sons of Temperance, for which a death benefit was offered, funeral expenses. For a further penny a week the temperance society would provide a doctor when needed. "For 10d a week dad was able to insure the five of us for a doctor," said Victor.
William George Brind was certainly aware of the Beedon Common connection. They used to visit aunts there and knew that there were some very strange names in the family. "He always used to kid us there was an uncle Nebukenezar," said Victor.
Once William and his brother in law Mr Tingey went to visit William's Uncle Elijah (b. Beedon 1852- d.Islington 1925) taking a stone jar of beer to his cottage. Somehow or other they dropped it on the doorstep and it broke. Journey wasted.
Victor says his father "always used to say if you want to find out where we come from go down to Beedon". He was also interested in a place near Portsmouth. So far no connection has been unearthed, but there could well be one.
William the son of Elijah and brother of John the stonemason, was a carman or a hawker early in his working life. According to Chris Willmore he started a vinegar and salt delivery round. He married a second time in 1900 after his first wife, Harriet died in 1899. When he died himself on December 15, 1912, in Hammersmith, he left £890 10s, a handsome amount for a man who came to London as a penniless boy. He bequeathed his 'business' to his eldest son, also William. William Jnr was a warehouseman, so perhaps the business had something to do with warehouses?
William Snr's will (written in 1909) was witnessed by two Alfred Smiths, both boot makers. They were Alfred John Smith and Alfred Charles Smith, who both lived at 120 Glenthorne Road, Hammersmith.
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William Henry Brind |
William Henry Brind (b. Fulham, April 8, 1900 -d.12/2/ 1975), who was Mayor of Hammersmith, from 1951-3 was probably the grandson of the salt and vinegar delivery man. He was a Railway Accountant and served as a member of Hammersmith Council for 28 years, from 1937-65. From 1953 he was an Alderman. His last known address was 1 Cromwell Mansions, King Street, W6. He was a Justice of the Peace (a magistrate) and was given the honorary title of Freeman of Hammersmith on February 18, 1964.
John Brind's son also John Brind (Alan Brind's grandfather) married Lizzie Alice, the daughter of an illiterate shoemaker called Frederic or Frederick Franklin or Francklin, born in Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire.
Frederick's father was a gardener called Thomas who had died by 1869 when Frederick, aged 26, married Sarah Ann Parker. Sarah was ten years older than him and had originally been married to a Mr Shave, a very rare name indeed. A Frederick Parker Shave was a witness at John and Lizzie Alice's wedding.
Sarah Ann's father George Henry (also dead when Frederick and Sarah got married) happens to have been a shoemaker. Perhaps Frederick married the boss's daughter? Mum says the plot of Hobson's Choice is about a shoemaker who does just that.
Frederick and Sarah Ann got married at Kensington Register Office. Perhaps they didn't think a church wedding was a good idea second time around (for Sarah Ann). Perhaps they weren't very religious. The witnesses for the marriage were two men. I thought it was traditional for witnesses to be a man and woman. When they married Sarah Ann already had three young children (Harry b 1863?, Charlotte b 1866? and Charles b 1868? ), perhaps more. The children were all born in Hammersmith but Frederick and Sarah Ann set up their marital home in Buckinghamshire. Perhaps Frederick went to Hammersmith to train as a shoe maker and went back home (with his wife) when he completed his training! Whatever the truth it seems clear they were not a typical Victorian family!
In 1891 John Brind & Lizzie Alice, newly married, were living with her mother, by then a widow. Strangely she had reverted to calling herself Sarah Ann Shave, perhaps because her son Harry Shave, a 27-year-old bootmaker, was living with them. The household also had a lodger and a boarder (though what the difference is I don't know) and had taken in a one year old waif called Hugh M Foster, born Hammersmith. The boarder was a printer (perhaps one of John Brind's friends), the lodger a blacksmith. John's grandfather Joseph Hall was a journeyman smith.
John Brind (Lizzie Alice's husband and Alan Brind's grandfather) is, of course the compositor, who died in Camberwell on March 12, 1958, at the age of 88. He had at least one brother, called Charles but known as Teddy. Teddy lived at Pitsea, Essex, and, according to Alan Brind, had twins. The boy twin came to some sort of dreadful end (probably drowned) at about the age of 10. The girl was simple. There is some reason to think that his wife was called Marie or Mary, perhaps she was Mary A H Brind, who died aged 87 at Brentwood, Essex, in the quarter ending March 1959. Teddy died at the end of 1962 or the beginning of 1963 aged 87 at Thurrock, Essex.
Teddy and John were both master printers. John worked for HMSO (Harrow) as a non established civil servant, possibly from 1920 to 1935. Before 1920 the Harrow works was owned by Waterlow & Sons and prior to the First World War the works was owned by David Allen & Sons.
"He was unique because he wasn't an established civil servant but he worked on the confidential side," Alan Brind says. Teddy was a printer's reader. John Brind was an apprentice when he walked in the Lord Mayor of London's Parade (probably in the late 1880s). He joined the London Society of Compositors in June 1888 (when he was 18), probably when he completed his apprenticeship.
He married Lizzie Alice Franklin, who was the daughter of a deceased bootmaker. She lied about her age when they got married in May 1890. Their first child was probably Bessie Alice Brind born Fulham in the quarter ending September 1891. She later got married to a Mr Miles and had three sons, John (Wink), Valentine and Jack. Val, with whom both my father, Alan, and grandmother, Hilda Brind, got on, was the middle one. He was born in 1926 or 1927.
John Brind, also had several other daughters. Alice was born around 1904 and died on May 20, 1966, a spinster. Renee (probably Mrs Chorley) and at least one other daughter (probably Mrs Murphy).
Renee had two children, John & Beryl. The other Great Aunt, who was married to a policeman, had a son called Dennis (or perhaps Denis).
My dad said: "Grandfather never (or hardly ever) came to visit us but once he brought my cousin Dennis Murphy to Knollys Road to say he was joining the RAF." Dennis's nickname in the RAF was Spud. He was a test pilot who died at Farnborough ten days before he was due to leave the RAF. He got a job to replace one of the two test pilots killed at Hatfield trying to break the Sound Barrier. "Grandfather heard it (the airplane crash which killed Dennis) over the radio," Dad said. Alan Brind says his grandfather, John Brind, was absolutely shattered by the death. Dennis was a Wing Commander and was probably born in 1918 or 1919.
Alan Brind says Dennis's father, a policeman, lost a leg trying to save the life of a child. Hilda Brind said this story is incorrect.
John Frederick Brind was the oldest son. A soldier, he married a woman named Irene, but they had no children. He was a Sergeant Major and evidently served in India as he was a member of the Freemason's Sarju Lodge in Fyzabad, Bengal, from October 1931 to the end of 1932. He died in 1938 at the age of 42.
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John Frederick (Jack) Brind pictured during the First World War. |
| See L C Brind |
Alan Brind remembers staying with Teddy for a few days when his father died. At the time there was some question of Hilda and Alan Brind living with Jack (John Frederick). Hilda Brind says Jack had a big flat. She thought he might have lived in Southend.
John Brind the compositor moved to Loughborough Junction before the 1930s. The family then moved to Camberwell Green, probably during the war.
An activist in the London Society of Compositors for many years, John Brind was evidently an ally or friend of R H Lucas and R W Couchman, both big wheels in the union (which had about 12,000 members before the war). He retired on August 24, 1935, at the age of 65, and was awarded a pension of 36s by the union. He won his union's pension ballot in May 1937 receiving £20 for the Amalgamated Press Machine Managers' Pension Fund Pension-- No. 1. This pension ballot was an odd idea. Members submitted their names for a limited number of pensions and their fellows voted to support them. Whoever got most votes got the best type of pension. Those with least votes got nothing at all.
He retired because he was overweight and with that type of job you had to be on your feet. Within a year of winning his pension and presumably settling down for a comfortable old age, he had lost his two sons.
John Brind was proud of his encyclopedic knowledge of spelling rules. He had a rule for any situation. He had steely blue eyes which fixed you in their gaze and he retained his intellect until he died.
According to family legend he continued to attend the London Society of Compositors conference as an elder statesman of the union many years after he ceased active work, until one year his chair on the platform collapsed. He then said that he wouldn't attend the conference again if they couldn't find a chair that would support his weight. He was apparently a large man (a beer drinker). He was also a snuff taker. He would take the snuff and quite a lot of it would fall on his fat front. Then he would brush the snuff off his chest "and we would all take snuff", said Dad. It has been suggested to me that Lizzie, his wife, was a bit daring for her era, going into pubs with the men. She died in 1930.
John Brind always said that there was only one family of Brinds. He used to keep note of all the Brinds whose names he came across. He said the Brinds all came from a farmer who worked his sons so hard they fled as soon as they could escape. This story seems to be a common legend, part of the folk lore of many families. Of course that doesn't mean to say it is untrue. Take a look at this entry in the 1851 census.
Hair John Brind who died in 1899 aged 52 seemed to have thick curly hair, with a very high forehead when he was photographed in his 40s. Perhaps he was going bald. My father (Alan Brind) still has a good head of hair at 80 and I believe his grandfather had a good head of hair when he died at the age of 88. Dad says he had curly hair like a monk, presumably like his grandfather. My grandfather (Leonard Charles) had straight hair, like my Dad and me, with a quiff at the front, again like me (mine is caused by a bump on the front of my head, I think). My grandfather died at the age of 40, probably too young to go bald. |
Finally, I used to think John Brind was a Freemason. His father was a stone mason (the Freemasons are a sort of secret guild descending from the stone masons but taken over by aristocrats two centuries ago). Alan Brind was offered the chance to go to a Freemason's boarding school when his father died. Printers in general seem to have close connections with the Masons. The LSC had many of its events at the Connaught Rooms (a Masonic centre) and the initiation ceremonial messing up (a sort of tarring and feathering) of an apprentice when graduating to journeyman, involves a compass. However, the masons very kindly searched their records and could find no entry for him.
When John Brind died a funeral allowance was given by the union and this fact is recorded in the London Typographical Journal (the official organ of the LSC). However, I have been unable to find an obituary in the journal.
It may be that John Brind was more active in the Masons after his retirement than in the LSC, and the new generation in the union simply didn't know about him.
John's daughter, Alice Doris Brind, was a company secretary and a prominent Red Cross Activist.
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My father and mother, Alan and Merlyn Brind, at their wedding on March 24, 1951, at St Lukes, West Norwood.
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My father, Alan Brind, was born in a nursing home on Knights Hill. He worked as a packaging engineer until he retired at the age of 65. He was the Leader of Welwyn Hatfield Council and Chaired a Hertfordshire County Council committee concerned with the Fire Brigade. He remains President of his trade union branch. He had five children.
