[BROWNFIELD FAMILY] [HISTORY] [TREES] [PEOPLE] [INDEX]

A LINE OF BROWNFIELDS

Jacob Brownfield was a Tailor living in Greenwich at the beginning of the 18th Century. In 1706 his eldest son James was born. The family were almost certainly poor, as the trade of tailoring was not well paid, and at that time, the population was divided into the aristocracy and the gentry, and on the other hand the working classes who lived near to the ‘bread line’ all the time. An extra tax or poor harvest and consequent increase in the price of bread, the staple food, would cause major hardship. There was a small middle class of Yeoman Farmers and small landowners but a tailor did not belong there. When an Elizabeth Brownfield, who would have been one of the family and was probably Elizabeth (Kither) the wife of Jacob’s eldest son James, was buried in 1779, she was buried in a pauper’s grave at St Alphege’s Church. There was no ‘Welfare State’ and men worked until they died, a widow would have no means of support and if the family could not afford to keep her, she would have to depend upon the ‘Parish‘ for her survival. Many of the Brownfields were watermen and having completed an apprenticeship were admitted as members of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen. The original watermen were regulated by an act of 1566 forming the Waterman’s Company. Their main occupation was acting as ferrymen, rowing pedestrians and animals across the Thames, which was only crossed by the single ‘London Bridge’. They had a reputation as tough and rowdy men, prone to colourful language and often involved in fights over fares. In 1700 the Lightermen, who were responsible for the handling of cargoes, rather than people, joined the Watermen, and after that, the occupations of the members of the company became much more diverse and embraced all the skills required for work afloat on the river. Although many of the Brownfield family continued to be apprenticed and eventually members of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen until the middle of the 19th Century, they took very different courses in earning their living on the River Thames. 

The first William was the fifth of James Brownfield’s seven children. In 1761 at the age of nearly 18, he joined the navy on the same day as a John Kiflin, a lad who was some three years older than himself. He served in an armed yacht, the Katherine based at Deptford, as an able seaman for 16 years. The Katherine was one of several Royal Yachts and was used for short trips transporting and escorting dignitaries such as the Queen of Denmark, Princess Caroline Matilda, to Holland in 1766, when Admiral Keppel hoisted his flag on board. Although the life of a sailor normally involved long periods at sea, William, as a volunteer rather than a pressed man, had greater freedom and in 1769 he married Ann, the younger sister of his friend John Kiflin. William and Ann had two boys who were both apprenticed as Watermen at the age of 14 or 15. In 1778 William transferred to H.M.S. Robust, a third rate ship of the line, as the Boatswain’s Mate. This was promotion and he would have been equivalent in rank to a Chief Petty Officer in today’s navy. One of his duties was administering the punishment with the cat-of-nine-tails to miscreants aboard the ship. He was on board the Robust during the battle of Ushant, where she suffered considerable damage. After repairs in Portsmouth dockyard, he sailed in her across the Atlantic to Halifax, where he was invalided out of the Navy with an injured leg, probably caused when the ship lost her main topmast in a gale. He eventually returned to England and worked, despite his injury, for 10 years as a waterman. He died a pensioner at the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich in 1799 at the age of 58. Despite spending 19 years in the Royal Navy, he gave his occupation at the christening of both his sons as a waterman.

Meanwhile, his son William was prospering. Having served his apprenticeship to Thomas Halfpenny, he married the boss’s daughter Sarah in 1793. In 1798, he was a founder member of the Greenwich Water Fencibles, a local volunteer corps, and in 1799, he was able to buy two houses outright in Crane Street by the river for £215. I wonder where he made his first capital, as by 1804 he was also the owner of a half share of a small ship. There is no doubt that he was an astute businessman and in 1913 he sold the two houses in Crane Street to The Naval Hospital for £1800, a profit of nearly £50,000 in today’s money. The Hospital already owned the properties on each side and no doubt felt that to have the complete row was financially beneficial. He then proceeded to rent the properties back for an annual rent of one peppercorn and continued to live there for the rest of his life. During the early 1800s, he held a number of appointments in the local community, which were mostly unpaid, but would no doubt have helped him move ‘in the right circles’. These included churchwarden, which was a largely political post, similar to the chairman of a parish council today, and in 1807/8 ‘overseer for the poor’, which may have had something to do with his mother Ann being admitted at about the same time to the Greenwich Alms Houses, which had just been built for ‘needy and necessitous widows’. He was also the Commissioner for Sewers and Commissioner for Greenwich at the Court of Request (for the recovery of small debts) within the ‘Hundred of Blackheath’. By 1813, he was the Captain Commandant of the Water Fencibles and just before the corps was disbanded, he entertained the Prince Regent, following a review on Blackheath. William firmly established the family in the middle classes and when he died in 1845, he left a substantial estate.

The next William, after completing his waterman’s apprenticeship, became a Trinity House Pilot, with a warrant from Gravesend to London Bridge. In 1817, he had married Mary Ann Munyard, the daughter of a currier (a fancy leather worker) who owned a shop in Greenwich with his brother. William’s father had served on the Vestry in 1809 with the Munyard brothers. Both William’s brothers Thomas and James not only followed the same profession as pilots, but they also married daughters of the Munyard brothers. They all lived near to one another at Ballast Quay in Greenwich, until the end of the 1840’s, when Thomas died and William and James moved to Gravesend. The profession of pilot was one of the most respected in the town and there is no doubt that their position in society, which was so important at that time, was considerably enhanced compared with that of their grandfather due to the hard work and success of their father.

In the next generation, at least two of the third William’s sons completed their apprenticeships and earned their living on the water, George as a pilot and Robert as a shipping agent. He eventually became a river postman.

Samuel was the tenth of William and Mary Ann’s twelve children. As a young man, he seems to have been a bit of a rebel. He was apprenticed to his Father, but failed to finish. He married Ann Deane in 1857, a pilot’s daughter, but none of his family signed the register and he and Ann, who was four years older than Samuel, both gave the same address near Hyde Park. He worked ashore on the wharfs and warehouses of the Victoria Dock, before moving across the river to the Surrey Docks, where he was the Deputy and then Superintendent in charge, for nearly 40 years. He seems to have been very popular, both with the employees and with the board of directors. He received considerable praise and was awarded a K.G.V by the Swedish government for services to the timber trade; this is the equivalent of a knighthood. He also accumulated a considerable fortune, in excess of two million pounds, in today’s money. When he retired there was consternation among the board and not only was he made a director, an almost unknown honour for an ex-employee, but two men were appointed to take over the job he had done single handed for so many years. After the death of his wife Ann in 1895, he married again 2 years later, to his housekeeper Elizabeth Reeves. Sidney and Percy, the two youngest of Samuel’s five boys carried on a family tradition by marrying sisters.

It was a cousin of Samuel’s, Mathew the son of James, who started the tradition for medicine in the family. Mathew Brownfield was born in 1832 and became a GP and senior surgeon at Poplar Hospital for Accidents. He lived in the East India Dock Road in Poplar and owned three tugboats for a hobby.

Harry, the second son of Samuel and Ann Deane, was the first member of the line to move away from the Thames for 200 years. Perhaps influenced by Mathew, his second cousin once removed, across the river, he went to medical school. Harry joined a practice in Petersfield in Hampshire, where he worked as a very popular GP for about 38 years. In his father’s will, Harry was due to inherit a substantial sum, but this may have been spent by Elizabeth, Samuel’s widow, who lived in their house until 1924, as it does not seem to have been passed on down the family! Harry married in 1890, a very pretty girl, seven years his junior, called Gertrude Fearis. They had four children in two pairs, separated by almost a decade. All four of the children were exceptionally successful in their careers or their marriages.

This eighth generation returned to the sea, Owen qualifying as a doctor and then joining the navy. His career started in a dramatic fashion when, only five weeks after joining the navy and 18 months after gaining his first qualification (he did not gain his MB,BS. until after the war), he found himself as the junior medical officer on board H.M.S Chester at the Battle of Jutland. The ship was attacked by four German Cruisers and suffered 30 killed and 32 severely wounded; including Jack Cornwall, the boy V.C. Owen was awarded the MBE at the end of the war. His last post was as Surgeon Rear Admiral in Charge of the Naval Hospital in Malta. Leslie went into the navy as a gunnery officer, rising to the rank of Vice Admiral. During his long career he was appointed the captain of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, when Prince Philip the new husband of the then Princess Elizabeth, was doing his ‘long course’ as a young naval officer. The college was housed in the same buildings, where his Great, Great, Great Grandfather, the boatswain’s mate, had been a pensioner 150 years before. Nancy was married to a Colonel of Marines and the younger girl Barbara to Charles Woodhouse, the hero of the Battle of the River Plate (the sinking of the Graf Spee). He finished his career as Admiral Sir Charles Woodhouse.

Richard is Leslie’s only surviving child. He qualified as a doctor at St Thomas’ Hospital in 1961 and worked as a GP in Portsmouth until 1988. He then returned to the hospital service as Consultant Occupational Physician to both the Portsmouth and Chichester Districts, as well as to the West Sussex County Council. He retired in 1998. He has three children. Mark is a GP in Kings Langley, Bucks and is the fifth generation of doctors in the family during the 300 years of this history. Catharine is making a considerable reputation for herself at IBM, as well as being the mother of three daughters; and Samuel who is a partner in, and runs the Internet part of a very successful marketing company. The connections with either the sea or the Thames seem to be lost at the present time.

HISTORICAL LINKS

Greenwich                                                               The Royal Hospital Thames Watermen                                                 Greenwich Water Fencibles HMY Katherine                                                     HMS Robust