Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

James Brown

Son of Scottish fisherman, became a butler before becoming innkeeper of the Crown

Plot 816 James Brown (1839-1911)

James was born at Loch of Sarclet, Wick, Caithness, Scotland, the son of Alexander Brown, a local man and fisherman, and his wife Ann who came from Orkney. He had three older brothers and two older sisters and his brothers were fishermen like their father.

James was clearly not prepared to settle down to life as a fisherman and left for England.

He married Elizabeth who had been born in Penn Street, Buckinghamshire, and their first son, James Musgrave, was born in 1870 in Orston, Nottinghamshire.

At the time of the 1871 census James was butler at Bohemia House, Hastings, the imposing mansion of Wastel Brisco, JP, MP, the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Sussex. The Brisco family employed a butler, a housekeeper, a cook, two housemaids, a laundry maid, a kitchen maid, a footman, a coachman and two grooms.

The house was sold in 1903 and became a school called Summerfields. (There are photographs of the house, including interiors, at https://www.1066.net/summerfields/index a website started in protest at Hastings Council’s decision to demolish the house in the 1970s.)

The positon of butler at such a house was clearly one of great responsibility and suggests that James must have entered service when he left Scotland, probably as a footman.

Meanwhile Elizabeth and their one year old son were living in Brisco Mews, Dorset Place, presumably the location of the Brisco horses and carriages. She had her ten year old niece from Buckinghamshire living with her.

Their second son, Arthur Louis, was born in early 1873.

At some point between then and April 1881 James decided to become a publican, a not-unusual decision for men with experience in domestic service.

He is recorded as publican of The Crown in Berkhamsted High Street between 1881and 1902.

His son Arthur Louis died aged 32 and was buried here.

James died aged 78 in 1911 at Ferndale, King’s Road and was buried 9 August.