Brown Family

Brown Family Papers: Boxes 9-11

A collection of letters and documents relating to the Brown family of Tiverton, Devon. Most of the letters are from the six children to their father’s second wife (mother to four of them, step-mother to the eldest two). There are a number of letters written from school, but most come from when the children were spread around the British Empire, and regularly wrote home with news and details of their lives. The four ‘boys’ also served in the First World War and some had long army careers.

The family comprises: Col. F.D.M. Brown, V.C. (Father), Mrs J. D. (Doris) Brown (mother/step-mother), Claude Russell Brown and Frank Brown (sons by FDMB’s first marriage), Wynyard (Wyn), Vincent (Kit), Llewyn (Llew) and Jessie (children from FDMB’s second marriage).

Household accounts and domestic financial documents, 1874-1939

Box 9 – Domestic accounts, invoices and bills, 1888, 1891 – Devon, France and India.

Box 10 – Domestic accounts, invoices and bills, 1892, 1893 – Devon and India.

Box 11 – Business, property titles, investments, trusts and allowances for children, covenants and investments, 1874-1939.

Brown Family Papers: Box 8

World War I documents of Claude Russell Brown

Collection of documents kept during his time serving in the Royal Engineers in Belgium during World War I. The documents refer to trench building and structure, road maintenance, offensive and defensive theory, reports on significant attacks and many other aspects of trench warfare.

Brown Family Papers: Box 7

Letters between the children of the Brown family; letters from Col. F.D.M. Brown to his children; school reports and documentation

Envelope 1:

Letters from Col. F.D.M. Brown to his children.

Envelope 2:

Letters between the various children of the Brown family.

Envelope 3:

Termly reports, correspondence with teachers and school miscellany, 1898-1909.

Brown Family Papers: Box 6

Letters from Wynyard (Wyn) Brown and from his wife (after Wyn Brown’s death in 1915); letters to Wyn Brown from his mother

Envelope 1:

Letters written by Wyn Brown to his mother from Abbotabad, 1913.

Envelope 2:

Letters from Mabel Brown (Wyn Brown’s wife) to her mother-in-law after her husband’s death at Gallipoli in 1915.

Envelope 3:

Letters from Mrs Doris Brown, to her son Wyn.

Envelope 4:

Letters of sympathy to Mrs Doris Brown on the death of her son, Wyn, in action, 1915.

Brown Family Papers: Box 5

Letters home written by Wynyard (Wyn) Brown

Envelope 1:

Letters written by Wyn Brown to his parents from school and from military training colleges, 1899-1907.

Envelope 2:

Letters written by Wyn Brown to his mother from early army postings, 1908-1910. Written from postings in Rawalpindi, Abbotabad, Kashmir and Lahore.

Envelope 3:

Letters written by Wyn Brown to his mother from postings in Abbotabad and Chitral, 1911-1912.

Brown Family Papers: Box 4

Letters written by Eric Brown to his mother; letters from Llewyn Brown to his mother

Envelope 1:

Letters written by Eric Brown to his mother from service during World War I, in Abbotabad, 1914-1915.

Envelope 2:

Letters written by Eric Brown to his mother, mostly form Abbotabad, 1916-1928.

Envelope 3:

Letters written by Llewyn Brown to his mother from school and army trainng colleges, 1900-1914.

Envelope 4:

Letters written by Llewyn Brown to his mother, 1919-1933. (Dates are omitted from most of the letters, so the order of the letters is not clear. They were written from his time in Pembroke College, Cambridge, survey work in Ghana in the 1920s, barracks in Chatham in the late 1920s, and a voyage to Singapore via Kandy in 1931. Llewyn Brown was a prisoner of war in World War I, captured in 1914, so there are no wartime letters in this collection.)

Brown Family Papers: Box 3

Letters of Eric Brown

Envelopes 1 and 2:

Letters written by Eric Brown to his parents form school, 1894-1898.

Envelope 3:

Letters written by Eric Brown to his mother, 1908-1909, mostly from army training colleges and early postings in Aden and Rangoon.

Envelope 4:

Letters written by Eric Brown to his mother, 1910-1911. Posted in Rangoon and Abbotabad.

Envelope 5:

Letters written by Eric Brown to his mother, 1912-1913 while posted in Rangoon.

Brown Family Papers: Box 2

Envelope 1: Letters from Jessie Brown to her mother, 1898-1925

Letters are mostly personal, discussing family business, local gossip and events, school and work conditions. Broken into sections:

Letters from school, 1899-1903
From nurse training, Salop, 1913
Nursing, Salop, 1914; nursing home becomes a centre for injured from the war
Nursing, Salop, 1915; details of war wounded throughout
Nursing, Salop, 1916; further details of wartime nursing
1922-25, Salop and also from the British Legation in Kathmandu.

Envelope 2: Letters from Vincent (Kit) Brown to his mother

Letters written while at school.

Envelope 3: Letters from Kit Brown to his mother, 1910-1913

Letters written during the early part of Kit Brown’s army career, mostly from Abbotabad.

Envelope 4: Letters from Kit Brown to his mother, 1914-1931

Letters written during the First World War – including from Gallipoli; also written from training and camps in Britain, from India [Pakistan] and other postings.

Envelope 5: Letters to Kit Brown from his mother

Brown Family Papers: Box 1

Envelope 1:

Letters home from Claude and Frank Brown, written while at school.

Envelope 2:

Letters from Frank Brown to his father and stepmother, 1896-1922; letters from Claude Brown to his stepmother, 1898-1939.

Envelope 3:

Personal (non-family) letters received by Claude Brown, 1898-1903

Envelope 4:

Personal (non-family) letters received by Claude Brown, 1904

Envelope 5:

Personal (non-family) letters received by Claude Brown, 1905