A 1910 local newspaper commented that my great grandmother, “Mrs Brown … has had a hard struggle to bring up her large and young family and several times illness and other misfortunes have befallen them”. She was born Lavinia Seaby, and was widowed in 1904 after ten years of marriage, when her husband Charley Brown died of cancer. What other records give insights into her family life?

Difficult times

I do not know what happened to the family in the immediate period following Charley Brown’s untimely death. It seems that the children continued to go to school in Sandy, as daughters Emily Brown and Esther Clara Brown were awarded prizes for attendance in 1908-09 (School log books from Bedfordshire and Luton Archives (BLARS) at FindMyPast). There is also an entry in the school admissions and withdrawals log showing that eldest son Walter Charles Brown was admitted to Sandy School in January 1905, and left in 1910 (he would have been 13 years old):

Extract from 1905 School Admission and Withdrawal book (Sandy CoE School, BLARS ref: SDSANDYSS1/2, via FindMyPast)

Although his father had died two years earlier, he is still shown as the son of ‘Chas’, of Cambridge Road. The ‘destination on leaving’ is shown as ‘Market Garden L.C’ (local council?), probably his first job. It seems he didn’t stick to it for long as, on 26 August 1910, the Biggleswade Chronicle reported that he was temporarily being employed as a season messenger by the Post Office when he had an accident on his bicycle, attempting to avoid colliding with a railway trolley, and fracturing his elbow.

The article (left) adds that he is the eldest of five children “who have only a mother to support them, the father died of cancer sometime ago after a long and painful illness, and Mrs Brown, who lives in the St Neots Road, has had a hard struggle to bring up her large and young family and several times illness and other misfortunes have befallen them.”

Biggleswade Chronicle, 26 August 1910 (British Newspaper Archive, FindMyPast)

What those other illnesses and misfortunes were, I don’t know. However, by the time of the 1911 census, Lavinia Brown and three of her five children are living at St Neots Road in a property with five rooms.

Extract from 1911 census (Ancestry.co.uk)

She is 49 and working as a Cook (Temporary), and states that she was married for 11 years, had seven children, two of whom had died. The two eldest girls, Emily Brown and Esther Clara Brown, have left home, probably to find work; her three boys, aged 7-13, are still living with her. Consistent with the newspaper article above, Walter Brown is still working as a Telegram Messenger Boy for the Post Office.

Unfortunately, I do not know where she was working, but presumably it was somewhere local, as it seems unlikely that she would have been able to leave the children for long. It seems that her struggle continued, as Ancestry.co.uk has a Workhouse Admissions and Discharge entry for her and two younger sons Horace Brown (my grandfather) and George Brown. They were admitted to the Biggleswade Workhouse for three days from 7 – 10 January 1913.

Extract from Biggleswade Workhouse Admissions and Discharges Register, Bedfordshire, England, Workhouse and Poor Law Records, 1835-1914, Ancestry.co.uk

Perhaps she had fallen ill, and couldn’t look after the children on her own, so they were all admitted to the Workhouse while she was treated. There are no other details recorded, and it seems that they returned home to Sandy quite soon.

By 1911, her eldest daughter Emily Brown had gone into service in Bedford and in 1912, aged 17, gave birth to an illegitimate daughter. Second daughter Esther Clara Brown also went into service and was a General Servant to a widower and his family in East Acton in London at the time of the 1911 census. She, too, gave birth to an illegitimate child in Southwark Workhouse in 1915. By then, aged 19, she had adopted the name Lavinia Gregory, but she and her son Walter Charles Brown (Gregory) were transferred from London into the charge of Biggleswade Union Workhouse on 8 September 1915. Sadly, Lavinia Brown’s family worries were far from over.

Loss of a son at war

After the loss of two babies and the early, painful death of her husband, Lavinia Brown now had to bear the tragic loss of her eldest son, Walter Charles Brown, who was killed in action in WW1 in France. He was just 19 years old. Newspaper accounts of his death and memorial service a month later note that he had joined the Territorial Army in 1914, when he would have been too young to enlist in the regular Army.

He was called up in August 1916 and embarked for France with the 5^th Bedfordshire Regiment. He soon transferred to the 2^nd London Regiment and was killed instantly in northern France on 17 December 1916 by an aerial torpedo which reportedly hit him in the head and chest. He had only been discharged from hospital on the day of his death and newspapers reported that he had sent a postcard to his mother that day – perhaps to tell her that all was well. By then she was living at Longfield Road, Sandy, not far from St Neots Road.

He is commemorated at the Rue de Bacquerot Cemetery, Laventie. The pain and distress of the loss of this young man is clear in the details of the memorial service held a month later, on 17 January 1917, and the In Memoriam notice placed in the local newspaper by his mother which appeared on 21 December 1917 in the Biggleswade Chronicle (British Newspaper Archive, via FindMyPast):

My grandfather Horace Brown would have been 16 years old when his eldest brother was killed. Their mother claimed a pension from the War Office for the loss of her son, who had written a will two months before his death, leaving all his property and effects to her. The WW1 Pension Card at Ancestry.co.uk shows that she was to receive three shillings and sixpence a week from 25 June 1918, her home address given as Haynes Cottage, Longfield Road, Sandy.

The Lloyd George Domesday Survey at The Genealogist shows that, in 1914, ‘Haynes Cottage’ at no.9 Longfield Road was one of several properties that actually belonged to William Haynes, from whom Lavinia Brown rented it.

This family photo in postcard format shows Walter Charles Brown in uniform, probably taken before he left for the front, as a parting gift for friends and family.

Private Walter Charles Brown, (CWGC record) killed in action 17 December 1916

For Lavinia and her surviving children, life went on. She lived through most of the second world war; but that’s another story.