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Previous Chapter 29.A : Samuel the letter carrier

Section 29 : Direct Line 1809-1927

Chapter 29.D

Arthur Wallis BRUSH
1855-1922

Arthur Wallis Brush was my great-grandfather.  He was born in 1855 in Pimlico, the son of John Thomas Brush and Mary Ann, nee Wallis. He was one of five children.  His siblings, John Edward, Mary Ann, George Samuel and Alice Sarah are considered in chapter 29.F.

At the 1861 census they form one of three households at 2 Caversham Street in Chelsea.

Three years later his father, John Thomas BRUSH dies in a swimming accident.  Following the death of John Thomas, his widow Mary Ann remarries on 10 September 1865. Her new husband is James Henry Cooper. She is shown as age 27, he as 22. The address for both of them is given as 14 Tachbrook Street - which was the Wallis family home. She is described as a spinster and her father's name is given as George Gurnett Wallis Brush. One of the witnesses is Mary Wallis Brush - presumably her mother. Why she did not want to be identifed as a widow is unclear but her relatives clearly went along with the charade. She is not actually 27 but is three weeks short of her 34th birthday. James Henry COOPER is recorded as a carpenter - which had also been John Thomas's occupation. In my father's autobiography he says that "I think she [Mary Ann] had a small shop for a time [before remarrying]" but I have no idea where he got this snippet of infomation from - oral family history?

In the 1871 census they are at 1 Temperance Cottages in Fulham. Mary is shown as age 37, which puts her year of birth as 1833/4. She is still understating her age but less than before. 15 year old Arthur is a Grocer's apprentice. He now also has a half-sister Charlotte E Cooper.  James Cooper is shown as 10 years younger than Mary Ann; he is recorded as a Dyer and Cleaner. George Wallis, the father of Mary Ann, was also a Dyer which might be relevant.

At the 1881 census he is listed as head of a household at 1 Eelbrook Gardens in Fulham.  As well as him, the household comprises his brothers John and George, his half sister Charlotte, a half brother Henry age 6 and his widowed grandfather George Gurnett Wallis.  Arthur is listed as a grocer's assistant and as a Methodist local preacher. Charlotte and Henry are considered in chapter 29.F . It seems very likely that his mother, Mary Ann, had died in 1876.

On 27 December 1882 Arthur marries Emily Pleming in her parish church at Probus, a village near Truro in Cornwall.  In 18?? she had come to London to train as a teacher at Southlands Training College in Battersea and it is presumably while she was there that they met.  Southlands was a Methodist training college with places for up to 105 women teachers.  It seems likely that it was the Methodist link that caused them to meet.  Maybe he preached there?  The Pleming family is the subject of chapter xx. One of the witnesses was Herbert E Savage - the Savage family feature later in the Brush family history.

When she married Arthur, Emily was twenty-four and Arthur was twenty-seven.  In those days married women were not allowed to be teachers and so Emily had to give up her post.  Arthur had by this time bought or rented a little shop at 190a Holloway Road, Highbury,  In his 1922 obituary, below, it says he set up in business forty years before his death which fits perfectly with his marriage date. It was at Holloway Road on 6th November 1884 that their first child was born and, in 1885, christened Arthur Wesley - my great-grandfather. 3 other children were born at Holloway Road , Elsie Louise, George Douglas and Herbert Stanley.

They were at 190a Holloway Road at the 1891 census. (Ancestry indexes this as Bruch) He is listed as "Grocery - Local Grocer" and as an employer.  Arthur Wesley and 4 year old Elsie Louise both listed as scholars.  George Douglas is just 2. And the family had a domestic servant, 15 year old Nelly McMahon.  If the numbering has not changed, the site is now part of the London Metropolitan University Building.  

In 1892 it seems that Emily's sister Marie Louise Pleming was also living with them; that is the address she gave at her marriage, in Islington, to John Cory of Saltash in Cornwall.  Arthur and Emily were the witnesses at the wedding.

Arthur Wallis Emily, nee Pleming Elsie Louise Arthur Wesley George Douglas The family group around 1892, before Herbert Stanley was born

In the summer of 1895 the family moved to another shop, this time at Tottenham Lane in Hornsey.  Eventually they moved to 'The Shrubbery' in Gordon Road, Hornsey - now no longer there since it was demolished and the whole area redeveloped many years later.

At the same time they seem to have moved house.  Herbert Stanley was born on 26th May 1895 at Holloway Road but at 5th July when the birth was registered his mother Emily gives her address as 2 Victoria Terrace in Hornsey.  Arthur is shown as a Grocer (Master).  They are still at Victoria Terrace at the 1901 census, with Arthur Wallis Brush listed as a Grocer and 16 year old Arthur Wesley a Grocer's Assistant.  In the next house, number 1 Victoria Terrace, lived a Henry Wallis, greengrocer, and family.  Just a coincidence?  Or a relative?  My father did not know of any oral tradition about this.  Victoria Terrace is close to Finsbury Park and the photo images on Google Maps suggest the 1901 house is still there.

Arthur also appears in the 1901 Electoral Register. His place of abode is 2 Victoria Terrace, Tottenham Lane but the nature and description of his qualifying property is "leasehold houses,278 & 286 Park Road, Crouch End". So he was aparently a landlord as well as a grocer.

By the 1911 census they had moved to 'The Shrubbery', Gordon Road

According to the 1911 census the house had 7 rooms.  That the family lived in a house called the Shrubbery has special echoes for me.  Throughout my time at secondary school, in the late nineteen sixties and early seventies, I was known as 'Shrub' - it being an anagram of Brush.  Was the same name game played 60 years earlier?

Arthur Wesley, Herbert Stanley and George Douglas
standing behind Emily, Arthur Wallis and Elsie Louise.
The sergeant's stripes on George's arm may help us date this picture.

At the 1921 census Arthur is identifed as an employer, though we do not know of how many people.  His business is described as "Wholesale Sundryman Spices, Baking Powder etc ".  His workplace is "at home".  He is at home with wife Emily and two of their children - George Douglas and Herbert Stanley. Elsie Louise had married in 1917. I have not been able to find Arthur Wesley in the 1921 census. As discussed in chapter 29.E, he may have been in Warwickshire or may have been 'on the road' selling the family business's grocery products.

Arthur Wallis Brush died age 66 on 24 May 1922, just a month after my grandparents were married. His obituary in the local paper focuses on his role as a local councillor.  Probate was granted to his widow Emily, George Samuel Brush grocer, and Charles Northam Davey clerk. George Samuel was Arthur's brother. Arthur's effects are valued at £909 9s 9d.

TEXT

Buried in New Southgate ceremony.
The phrases "called to higher service" and "to whom the call came" are, I think, very Methodist.

Emily continued to live at 'The Shrubbery' until her death in 1938 - my father (born 1925) recalls going often to visit his Grandmother there.

Next Sections
Chapter 29C: The younger children of Samuel and Sarah and
Chapter 29D: The children of John and Mary and