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Section 29 : Direct Line 1809-1946
Arthur Wallis Brush and Emily nee Pleming had four children. The eldest, Arthur Wesley Brush, was my grandfather and is considered in section 29.E, His siblings Elsie Louise, George Douglas and Herbert Stanley are considered in this section. From 1882 until 1895 the family was living at 190a Holloway Road, Highbury in North London, above Arthur Wallis's grocers shop. From there they moved to Victoria Terrace, Hornsey in and by 1911 to The Shrubbery, Gordon Road, Hornsey.
Elsie Loiuse was born in January 1887. The 1939 register shows her birth date as 4th January, the baptism register shows it as 14 January. She was baptised on 13 March at Highbury Wesleyan Methodist Chapel.
In 1917 she married John Herbert Savage - known I understand (from dad?) as Jack. He was her cousin - her mother's sister Elizabeth (or Eliza) Pleming had married Herbert Edward Savage and John Herbert was one of their children. He had been born in Probus in Cornwall (like Elsie's mother Emily ) but was living with Elsie and her parents in 1901 when he was 18 and she was 14 ( or at least staying with them on the night of the census). Several unsourced Ancestry trees say the marriage date was 3 January.
Their frst child was Edward Ralph born on 24 March 2020.
In the 1921 census they are living in Edmonton. John Savage was a Bank Clerk with the Colonial bank at 30 Gracechurch Street London EC . Elsie is listed as "Home Duties" - what my parents generation and mine knew as 'a housewife and mother'.
They had two further children - Alan born on 17 March 1922 and John Douglas on 9 January 1925 , All the sons' birth dates are shown in the 1939 Register.
The probate calander records "SAVAGE John Herbert of 4 Raith-avenue Arnos-grove Southgate Middlesex died 22 October 1936 at Wood Green and Southgate Hospital Bounds Green-road Wood Green Middlesex Probate London 23 November to Elsie Louise Savage widow.Effects £2854 1s. 11d."
At the 1939 register she was living at 4 Raith Avenue, Southgate. She remained there for many years.
'Auntie Elsie' was a charecter in my own upringing in the 1960s, though mostly offstage. I must have met her but have no particular recollection of this. What I do remember was my great aunt in her 80s sending small presents at Christmas to me. But without realising I was in my early teens. After the year I received a small toy lorry my mother must have said something as the following year I recieved a pair of red underpants. Which caused amusement and emabrrasment at the time - but how kind of a great aunt who barely knew me to keep sending presents.
Elsie died on 23 Nov 1972 at Arkley Lawn Nursing Home, Barnet, Hertfordshire, England - again listed in the Probate Calander.
Her three sons - my second cousins once removed , but always known as uncles - were also present in my childhood. They were my father's closest relatives and were a part of his youth - as mentioned i his memoirs. He kept in touch wth them but we did not see a lot of them.
Edward Ralph, who I always knew as Ralph, was a Bank clerk at the time of the 1939 register but went on to join the Navy. In the 1960s he, wife Barbara and children ?son? and Gillian lived in Aldenham just a few miles awy from us at Radlett and we did go to see them from time to time. My memory of him is that he was big and bearded.
The other two I have even fewer memories of. But in 1976 when I had to sit my Law Society Part 2 exams at Alexandra Palace my parents connection with them was still sufficently strong for me to go and stay with one of them to be close at hand. I am embarrased that I cannot rememer which.
Uncle George, my great uncle, was born on 8 December 1888.
At 1891 he is with the family at 190a Holloway Road.
At 1901 he is with the family at 2 Victoria Terrace. Also listed there are two of his cousins, John and Frederick Savage.
At 1911, age 22 a Solicitor's Law Clerk, unmarried, he still living with his parents and all three siblings at The Shrubbery.
In WW1 he served with the 5th London Regiment and reached the rank of Sergeant. He was in France or Belgium from 25 January to 24 May 1917.
There is another George Douglas Brush of a similar age - a Canadian - who also served in Europe - with the Canadian Army . At least one Ancestry tree tries to merge the two men together.
On 9 August 1924 he married Elsie Jeannie Blackett at All Hallows Church, Tottenham. His address at the time of marrige is still shown as the Shrubbery. His occupation is Solicitors Managing Clerk. The role of Managing Clerk in a solicitor's firm is broadly the equivalent of a 'Legal Executive' performing a professional legal function - not just a clerk.
He appears in the 1927 Elecoral Roll at 5 Gordon Road - the Shrubbery, though his wife Elsie does not.
At some point before 1935 ( when he is listed in the Enfield and Winchmore Hill Directory) he moved to 138 Morley Hill, Enfield.
At the time of the 1939 register he is a Solicitors' Managing Clerk, living at 4 Raith Avenue with his sister Elsie Savage and her three sons.
38 Morley Hill, Enfield was again his address after this. He is there in the 1956 and 1962 phone directories with number ENField 7239.
George was the uncle with whom my father retained most contact and who he greatly respected. I have memories, albeit vague ones, of him visiting us in Radlett in the 1960s and 70s. Memories of a benevolent uncle.
George died on 15 April 1978. His estate was valued at £20,356 and probate was granted on 20 November.
Herbert Stanley was my great uncle, though I have no memory of him - he had died when I was just eight.
He was born in on 26 May 1895, when the family were still at 190a Holloway Road. But at 5th July when the birth was registered his mother Emily gives her address as 2 Victoria Terrace in Hornsey where they woud stay until .
He married Mary Pearl Johns in 1923 in Cornwall. Another person in the family history who had been born in Probus, on 31 July 1895.
He died at the Pennance Nursing home in Falmouth on 12 March 1963 andprobate was granted to his nephews Raloh and Alan Savage.
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