Hi, I am researching my family history. My ancestor Robert Swannell Brownie rented a property referred to as "Wittage Close" that I believe was on or around Taplow Court. I would like to hear from anyone who knows anyone about where this building is, or can shine any light on the history around Taplow Court at that time. My ancester died there in 1889, and took up residence there after retiring around the end of the 1870's.

many thanks,

Shane Brownie

Hi Robert Swannel Brownie was brother of my great, great grandfather John Brownie b. 1/9/1811. We are trying to authenticate that generation and there parents who we believe to be Wrightson Ward Brownie who married Elizabeth Akins. Wrightson Ward brownies father is believed to be Robert Brownie who was married to Eleanor Wrightson in 1780.

Would love to hear from anyone else who is researching the Brownie's

Regards

Ruth Dutton (Nee Brownie)

John Watts Brownie is my second great grandfather. I have information on his ancestors, if you would like to share.

regards Leanne Pine

Hi Leanne

John Watts Brownie is my second great grandfather too. Perhaps you could send me info to amissterry@hotmail.com and I can send you what I know.

Karen

I can send you what I know Ruth if you like.

That is correct as far as I know. They were sail makers originally and ended up in the High Street in Uxbridge where they had a shop. There is talk about them creating the marquees for Queen Victoria (trying to find where I got this information from) coronation or something. My part of the family moved to Brighton (John Watts Brownie). I have pictures and stuff ancestry.co.uk but I don't know if you can look at it if you are not subscribed.

Karen

Wrightson Ward was a landlord at the George in Uxbridge Uhttp://pubshistory.com/London1826/London1826-U.shtml

DEATH OF MRS. K. BROWNIE Link with Old Uxbridge Broken FIRST LOCAL TRADER TO SELL RADIO A link with the days when Uxbridge was a market town relying on horse-drawn carriers for the delivery of good to the great Metropolis, was broken by the death on Monday evening of Mrs. Kate Brownie, 13, Belmont road, at the age of 86.She was the widow of Mr. William Herbert Brownie, after whose death in 1901, she continued on the well-known business of rope spinning, manufacturing rick covers etc., in High-street until the property was reconstructed three and a half years ago.

The business was established in 1808 by the late Mr. W. Brownie, trading as Robert Brownie. Originally part of the George Hotel, a coaching inn, Mrs. Brownie’s husband’s great grandfather had alterations made to the inn, converting it into three parts. He opened one portion for the manufacturer and sale of ropes, sacks, rick covers, the hire of marquees and tents and was known throughout a wide area among farmers and local societies as a trader with a sound reputation for the quality of his goods.
Sold First Wireless SetsThis was the business which Mrs. Brownie continued after the death of her husband, not only maintaining its high traditions but considerably extending its scope to meet the requirements of a district, which in later years rapidly became urbanised. With the introduction of broadcasting immediately following the war, Mrs. Brownie, assisted by her son, Mr. Bert Brownie, and daughter, Miss Edith Brownie, widened her business activities to include wireless and was the first trader in the town to offer crystal sets to the public.Thus Mrs. Brownie lived through an age of great development locally, saw the coming to Uxbridge of motors, trams, cinemas, electric trains, and trolley buses, the advent of the aeroplane, and the introduction of wireless. In her business and private life she kept abreast of modern ideas, and until the premises were required for reconstruction three and a half years ago retained a wonderful vigour. Her shop was one of the few between Uxbridge and Windsor which had the authority to bear the Royal Coat of Arms, and her last act before retiring into private life was to give to the Uxbridge Museum the Royal Arms which had been proudly displayed over the doorway for about 130 years. The shop served four monarchs: King William IV, Queen Victoria, King Edward VII and King George V.Organised Entertainment Apart from her business activities Mrs. Brownie found time for social work, and will be well remembered by older Uxbridgians for her organisation of concerts and dramatic shows before and during the war.Though never actually acting in dramatic performances she was the leading spirit of the old Uxbridge Dramatic Society, being associated with the late Mr. R. A. Sargent, late Mrs. Kate Morten, Miss C. M. Toswell, Mr. Frank Grainge, her own son and daughter and others whose names conjure up a period, before cinemas, when the town was dependent for its entertainment on local amateur talent. On the rare occasions she was persuaded to sing, she delighted her audience. A favourite song of her’s was “The Children’s Home” – indictative of a great love she had for the younger generation.There concerts and entertainments were always for the financial benefit of some worthy object, usually a church or chapel. Denomination did not matter when Mrs. Brownie agreed to lend her help and her enthusiasm for Uxbridge soldiers ? Box Fund. She opened bazaars in the town, including the Salvation Army.She was a staunch Conservative. Since leaving her business for retirement at 13, Belmont-road, she has enjoyed rest and quiet after a busy life. A month or two ago she began to fail in health and on Monday passed away leaving happy memories of a life devoted to kindly service for others.The funeralThe internment took place in the same grave as her husband in Uxbridge cemetery yesterday afternoon.The vicar (the Rev. A. D. Perrott), conducted the first part of the service in Uxbridge Parish Church and officiated at the graveside.The family mourners were: Mr. Bert Brownie (son), Miss Brownie (daughter), Mrs. Brownie (daughter-in-law), Alan (grandson), Mr. and Mrs. Corney (nephew and niece), Mrs. Franklin and Miss Ryall (nieces). Others who followed were Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Playfair and Raymond, Mr. and Mrs Brown (Bognor), Mr. J. Batchelor and Mr. T. Harding (old employees of the firm).Among those present were Mrs. Dagnall, Mrs. And Miss Belch, Mrs. Caswell, Mrs. Vaisey, Mrs. Graves, Mrs. E. T. White, Rev. Luther Bouch, Miss Lakeman, Miss Gales, Mrs. Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Foyer. Mr. Webb, Mr. Weatherley, Mrs. Seldon, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, Mr. and Mrs. Drayton, and Mrs. Gilles.Floral tributes were sent from Edie; Bert and Rene; Raymond; Alan (grandson); Jack and Winnie (nephew and niece, Clacton-on-sea); Ada; Uxbridge Fire Brigade; F. and R. Kirby; Mr. and Mrs. Brown and Betty (Bognor); Mr. and Mrs. Aspinall and Freddie; Mr. and Mrs. G. Gerrard; Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Weir and Mrs. Coates (Stoke-on-Trent); Arthur and Nancy (Gerrards Cross); Mrs. Allen and family; Mr. and Mrs. Buckley and family; John Batchelor and Tom Harding; Mr. and Mrs. Hughes; Gladys and Bill; Mrs. Seldon; Mr. and Mrs. J. West;

THEY SERVED FOUR MONARCHS" The story of the BROWNIE family in Uxbridge.The title of this article is taken from the 'Middlesex Advertiser dated 8th March 1935, and was the headline to a feature recording the closure of Brownie's shop at 149 High Street. The old-established firm of rick-cloth, sack and rope manufacturers, run by the family for over a century, was at last closing its doors.The first documentary evidence we have of a Brownie in Uxbridge dates from 1813, when Wrightson Ward Brownie took over the licence of the George Inn in the High Street. Wrightson was the son of Robert Brownie and his wife Elinor (nee Wrightson), and it seems likely that they lived in Dover Kent, Family tradition records that Wrightson Brownie was a sea-faring man.Yet on 4th January 1806 Wrightson Brownie ‘of Dover’ married Elizabeth Atkins in the parish church of her home town of Rickmansworth. How the couple met is not known, but they appear to have settled initially in Dover, where their eldest child, Robert Swannell Brownie, was born in 1806. Nevertheless by 1811 the young couple were back in Rickmansworth, for it was there that their fourth child, John was christened. Within two years of that event they were running the George Inn at Uxbridge, a property belonging at this time to the Salter family who owned a Rickmansworth brewery. Wrightson and Elizabeth had eleven children altogether, the last six being born and christened in Uxbridge. The inn-keeping trade does not seem to have been altogether toMr. Brownie's liking, and being an expert in ropes and sail-cloth he launched a business in part of the inn premises selling ropes and sacks. The enterprise prospered, and by 1828 Wrightson Brownie had surrendered the licence of the 'George' and was devoting himself fully to the trade he knew best. The 1830 list of those eligible for jury service from Uxbridge includes "W.W.Brownie, sack maker". The firm’s ledger for the year 1833 survives in the local archives, and indicates a flourishing business with customers as far apart as London_, Pinner, Watford, Ivinghoe, Aylesbury, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Twyford, Maidenhead, Chobham, Chertsey and Brentford. The most notable customer however was King William IV, the first of the four monarchs the family were destined to serve.It is possible that Wrightson’s father, Robert, joined his son in the Uxbridge business in these early years, for Robson's Directory of 1838 lists the firm, as "R.Brownie & Son, Uxbridge Moor and High Street, tarpauling and rick-cloth maker".After Wrightson Brownie’s death in 1846, the business was carried on by his eldest son, Robert Swannell, trading as 'Robert Brownie'. By the middle of the century they were described as 'sack, sail-cloth and twine­–makers,' though it is clear that ropes were a major part of the firm's output. These were made by hand at this time, and part of the rope-walk survived until 1935. Among the family papers is the draft of a letter written by Robert Brownie to a customer in March 1857. This promises a 3½ inch rope, to go through double and treble blocks, at a cost of about 40 shillings. "I will take care you shall have a very good one" he writes.The hire of tents and marquees was another aspect of the Brownie business, and it is known that their tents were in use at the time of the coronation of Queen Victoria, the second monarch to be served by the family. On 26th May 1858 Brownie's supplied an enormous marquee to accommodate 500 people and 100 attendants at the historic political dinner known as 'The Slough Banquet' (see Maxwell Fraser's "History of Slough", 1973).


It is clear that as time went by Robert Brownie became sufficiently well off to hand over the running of the business to his younger brother John, and to live the life of a country gentleman. The essay "Peregrinations of a Kiddy", which describes Uxbridge High Street in the middle of last century, says that Robert was partial to shooting, and also devoted much of the time to his farm - apparently at Harefield. Similar sentiments are to be found in the long poem about the High Street written in 1877 by (it is thought} Thomas Strutt: Robert Brownie was gone to his farm, Which they say has for him a great charm. I will hope no offence, But a share of his pence Would not do me I'm sure any harm.When Robert died in 1889 he left over £25,000, which considerable sum as distributed among a large number of nephews and nieces. The business was left to John Brownie, who had been managing affairs for so long, but he was now nearly eighty years of age and a widower, being looked after by his daughter Eleanor. By an Indenture dated 12th December 1891 he assigned the business to his son, William Herbert. The new owner was destined to be proprietor for only ten years. It is said that he was too addicted to the bottle; and girls going up George Yard on their way to the School of Industry remember him as an ill-­mannered, cantankerous individual. From 1893 the business was in fact run by a manager, Henry Edwin Cocks; and this arrangement continued after William Brownie’s death in 1901. His widow, Kate, became the new proprietor. At time the firm were advertising ‘board cloths, wagon tarpaulins and coke bags' as well as ropes, sacks and rick-cloths.Brownie's marquees, much in demand at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, were again in use at the coronations of Edward VII and George V, the last two monarchs to be served by the firm. The family still have the warrant dated December 1912, authorising them to display the Royal Arms as suppliers of rick-cloths to H.M. George V at Windsor.Alter the 1914-18 war demand for Brownie's products declined as agriculture gave way to suburban living, and Mrs. Brownie turned to the sale of ‘wireless apparatus equipment’. She was helped by her daughter Edith, and for a time by her son _Herbert (Bert). Hers was the first shop in Uxbridge to sell crystal sets. This writer remembers that the accumulator for the family wireless set was taken to Brownie's to be re-charged at regular intervals in the early '30s,By March 1935 the decision was made to undertake extensive rebuilding of the shop and the adjacent George Inn, and Mrs. Brownie chose this moment to close down. Brownie's had been the only shop left in the town with small panes of glass in the shop-window, and the only firm left in the High Street displaying the Royal Arms. (These arms were presented to the Uxbridge museum, but they were in such poor condition that it was not found possible to exhibit them to the public). Thus ended the fascinating story of a firm founded in the hey-day of the stage-coach, and today there is no trace of a Brownie in the local directories. The writer acknowledges with thanks the help of Miss E. Winifred Ryall of Redhill, Mrs. E.J.W. Jones, Mrs. Ada Buttrum, Mr. P.McCabe and the Hertfordshire Record Office. He was fortunate enough to read the family scrapbrook, lent to him by Miss Edith Brownie just prior to her death in 1970.K.R. PEARCE.ROBERT BROWNIE = ELINOR WRIGHTSON (Married 1780)(Mar ried 1780) ROBERT WRIGHTSON WARD(1782 - 83) (1784 - 1846).= ELIZABETH ATKINSROBERT SWANNEL 2 daughters: JOHN 4 daughters and(1806 - 89) Jane and (1811 - 93) 3 sons:= MARY BROWN Elizabeth. = SOPHIA MACHIN Susannah, Mary Am(? - 1891) (1815 - 71) Sophia, Leonard, Frederick, William and Caroline.3 sons and WILLIAM HERBERT 3 daughters and2 daughters: (1848 - 1901) 1 son:John, Maria, = KATE SALMON Sophia, Eleanor,Robert, Eliza (1852 - 1938) Emma and John. and Leonard.­EDITH KATE HERBERT SELWYN(1881 - 1970) (1888 - 1956)

Do/Rab 2 Dover Borough register of enrolled apprenticeship indentures (large volume – not suitable for photocopying) Page 75: William [sic] Ward Brownie of the age of fourteen years and upwards, son of Robert Brownie of Dover, mariner, doth by indenture dated 19th December 1798 put himself apprenticed to Thomas Randall and Peter Popkiss of Dover, sailmakers to learn their art and with them as an apprentice to serve from the date of the indenture for the term of seven years, the masters for the considerations therein mentioned covenant to pay or cause to be paid at the end of the said term of seven years unto the said apprentice the full sum of £20 for his own use provided he duly serve the said term…and also to teach him their trade of a sailmaker…and the father covenants of provide…meat, drink, lodging, wearing apparel and wash and mending…and all other necessaries Inrolled 18th January 1799 before the Mayor [and jurats]

Robert Swannel Brownie was baptised on 09/11/1806 at St James the Aposle, Dover, Kent, England

Hi Ruth

I am researching the same Brownie line and all my info is on Ancestry.com.au. If you are a member I will give you access otherwise I could send you a .ged file.

Regards
Leanne Pine (nee Brownie)

I am researching the "Brownie Wireless Company (of Gt. Britain) which was in operation between 1923 and 1933. The Company was managed by one Capt. James W. Barber and produced crystal sets and later valve radios for the home and overseas market. The Company initially operated from premises in Garrick Street, then Euston Road and lastly Mornington Crescent, London. I am trying to establish a connection between the Company and the Brownie's of Uxbridge, knowing of their retail involvement with the early wireless set business through Kate Brownie and her son and daughter. Any leads would be much appreciated.