#52Ancestors #49 Albert E Brown, clothiers’ clerk and soldier

Albert Brown, the youngest of six sons of Joseph and Alice Brown. He was born in Newcastle in 1884 but by the age of 6 the family had ’emigrated’ to Yorkshire and he was living in Leeds, so perhaps he had a hybrid accent.

His wife Fanny was the third of six daughters of a commercial traveller and book keeper called Fred Swallow.  Fred and his wife Ann (nee Holdroyd) seem to have travelled round a lot after their childhood and marriage in Huddersfield, Yorkshire.

Attestation of Albert E Brown witnessed by BSM Michael Brown

By 1901 Albert was 16 and working as a clothiers’ clerk.  However, like his brothers, he saw service in the army.  At the age of 24 in 1909, whilst working as a stockman for J Hepworth & Sons he attested for four years service with the Royal Field Artillary, 151st West Riding Brigade.  I was looking at his sloping-back signature when I noticed that the witnessing signature on the line below was that of his older brother BSM Michael Brown, my great-grandfather.  Well that should have made it easy for Michael to be sure that Albert’s information was accurate!

The following year Albert and Fanny married in Leeds, with Albert’s older brother Thomas as one of the witnesses. Their honeymoon baby Mona was born a month before the 1911 census.

Albert was working as a stock-keeper and warehouseman by the time his daughter was born.  However during the first world war Albert was away with the 49th Divisional Company, Royal Field Artillary in France.

My grand-father’s hand-drawn family tree notes that Albert died in 1980, I don’t know when Fanny passed away.

© Text copyright Lynne Black 7 December 2014
First published: https://starryblackness.wordpress.com/2014/11/29/albert-e-brown/

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