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William Roger Brown

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Sir William Roger Brown (1831 – 14 May 1902), known as Roger Brown, was an English mill-owner and philanthropist, lord of the manor of Beckington in Somerset.

Early life

He was born in 1831, the son of James Brown, a tea merchant, of Highfield, Hilperton (near Trowbridge, Wiltshire), and Bath. On leaving school Brown was taken into the business of his uncle, Samuel Elms Brown, at the Pole Barn cloth mills, Trowbridge.[1] In 1857 he married his uncle’s daughter Sarah.[2]

In 1859, Brown began to build for himself and his wife a new country house called Highfield at Hilperton. This continued to grow for many years.[3]

Career

Newtown Primary School, Trowbridge

Brown made a large fortune as a clothier. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Wiltshire and became the owner of land at Beckington which made him its lord of the manor.[2] He was a leading figure in Wiltshire's textile industry and at one time employed a thousand people in the cloth mills of the Brown & Palmer company[4] (reconstituted as Palmer & Mackay in 1877).[5] One of the original members of Wiltshire County Council, he was commissioned as a deputy lieutenant for the county in 1898,[6] and was appointed High Sheriff for 1898–99.[1][7]

Brown provided the site for a new school in Newtown, Trowbridge, which opened in 1901;[4][8] he is named on its foundation stone.[9] Between 1887 and 1889 he also paid for the building of the Trowbridge Town Hall, at a cost of some £20,000 (equivalent to £2,792,241 in 2023) to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria.[4] During his lifetime, a marble bust of Brown by Edward Sheppard, inscribed to commemorate his donation, was placed on the staircase of the town hall.[10][1]

In 1893, Victoria made Brown a knight bachelor, and in 1895 he received a grant of arms.[2]

Legacy

Lady Brown’s Cottages

Brown's wife died on 6 December 1899,[11] and soon after he built and endowed two blocks of almshouse cottages in her memory, to house six widows.[1] Known as Lady Brown's Cottage Homes,[4] they still stand on Polebarn Road, Trowbridge, altered to make five dwellings.[12] Pevsner describes their style as "deliberately rustic, many-chimneyed and many-gabled".[13]

Brown died on 14 May 1902. He and his wife were buried in a grand mausoleum in Trowbridge cemetery.[14] His estate was valued for probate at £425,137,[15] equivalent to £58,298,846 in 2023, and in his will he left money to buy fuel for the deserving poor.[16]

The mausoleum is a pink granite structure on a square base, with a round-headed doorway.[14] In 2012, its bronze gates were stolen, and in 2021 the same fate befell its valuable bronze doors which had been locked in the cemetery chapel for safekeeping.[16]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d "Wilts Obituary: Sir William Roger Brown, Kt". Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine. 32 (96): 230. 1902 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  2. ^ a b c "SIR WILLIAM ROGER BROWN, Knight Bachelor, Justice of the Peace for the county of Wiltshire, Lord of the Manor of Beckington" in Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, Armorial Families: A Complete Peerage, Baronetage, and a Directory of Some Gentlemen of Coat-armour (1895), p. xxxiv
  3. ^ Brief History, Fieldways.co.uk, accessed 7 August 2022
  4. ^ a b c d Chettle, H. F.; Powell, W. R.; Spalding, P. A.; Tillott, P. M. (1953). "Parishes: Trowbridge". In Pugh, R. B.; Crittall, Elizabeth (eds.). A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 7. Victoria County History. University of London. pp. 125–171. Retrieved 8 August 2022 – via British History Online.
  5. ^ "No. 24442". The London Gazette. 10 April 1877. p. 2540.
  6. ^ "No. 26433". The London Gazette. 22 April 1898. p. 4705.
  7. ^ "No. 26945". The London Gazette. 8 March 1898. p. 1415.
  8. ^ "Newtown Community Primary School, Trowbridge". Wiltshire Community History. Wiltshire Council. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
  9. ^ Historic England. "County Junior School (1198330)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
  10. ^ "Bust of William Roger Brown". Art UK. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
  11. ^ "Dame Sarah Brown" in The Genealogical Magazine, Vol. 2 (1899), p. 422
  12. ^ Historic England. "Lady Brown's Cottages, 1-5, Polebarn Road (1021634)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
  13. ^ Orbach, Julian; Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (2021). Wiltshire. The Buildings Of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. p. 738. ISBN 978-0-300-25120-3. OCLC 1201298091.
  14. ^ a b Historic England. "Cemetery, The Brown Mausoleum (1284251)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
  15. ^ "BROWN sir William of "Highfield" Trowbridge Wiltshire knight died 14 May 1902" in Wills and Administrations 1902, p. AU2
  16. ^ a b Baker, John (12 November 2021). "Mystery of £10k solid bronze doors stolen from Trowbridge chapel". Wiltshire Times. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
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