|
|
|
Walter Brown - innkeeper of the Gun Inn c.1874. (This photograph was discovered among Harry Brown's papers in Canada and was passed down through the family). |
THIS IS FINDON — www.findonvillage.com created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.
THE BROWNSValerie Martin Copyright 1999
First published in the Findon News in March 2003.
|
|
|
Walter Brown - innkeeper of the Gun Inn c.1874. (This photograph was discovered among Harry Brown's papers in Canada and was passed down through the family). |
The Gun Innkeeper around 1874 was Walter Brown (born 1832 and christened in Findon on 8th January 1832, and died c.1907/09). He was the son of Martha Brown at the forge and had been the blacksmith until handing over to his nephew before he became the village innkeeper. Walter married Clara, born 1850, from Penistone, York.
Walter's first child, Harry, was born upstairs at the Gun Inn on 13th April 1874. In 1911 Harry became a carpenter and emigrated to Canada on the Empress of Ireland.
Walter's second son, Norman, was born in 1876 just prior to the family moving to Chaldon in Dorset. Other children born later were Ellen, Richard, Henry, Walter, Max, Kate, Ethyl and Mabel.
|
|
|
Harry Brown — born at the Gun Inn in 1874. Pictured here on the right, aged 59 in 1933 with his grand daughter, Joyce, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. |
|
|
|
Harry Brown (born at the Gun Inn), with his wife, Nora in Toronto many years later. |
Mrs Clara Brown's sister, Charlotte Senior also lived with the family in Dorset and may have also resided at the Gun Inn with them.
One of Walter Brown's grandsons wrote many years later about a visit to him in Chaldon, Dorset and gives a vivid description of old Walter Brown the innkeeper of the Gun Inn all those years ago —
|
"My father's (Harry) family resided a long distance from our home so I seldom visited. My parents visited Grandpa Brown (Walter). I was very young (born 1903), I remember my father carrying me on his shoulders across town. Grandpa was lying on the bed. I had a vivid memory of noticing my eyes were level with the top of the bed mattress so I must have been very small. In my childish sense Grandpa appeared to tower above me. He had a full white beard, he reached down and patted the top of my head. I was not aware that he was dying. I never saw him again." |
In 1977, another descendant of Walter Brown's, Larry Bain, with his wife and daughter visited the Gun Inn when the premises was in the middle of being renovated. Unfortunately, the licensee would not allow them to go upstairs to see where Harry had been born — they said it was a great disappointment after they had travelled all the way from Canada.
Continue if you would like to read about Hephizibah Stoner at the Gun Inn c.1881.
This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.
|
E-mail: valeriemartin@findonvillage.com |
Back to the Gun Inn Index