The BURROUGH family
in Brighton and Bristol about 1918 to 1970
Hedley Burrough probably with Eve, Tom and John
at Brighton about 1918
Hurlstone Point 1924
Probably Hedley, Rosina, Tom and John
Hedley Gravett Burrough (born 11th July 1876)
Granddad Burrough is described as a secretary in legal documents (one is dated 23/12/1899) but I think Dad said he was a manager for the YMCA. I believe he trained as a solicitor; his father and grandfather were carpenters and smallholders in Broad Chalke near Salisbury. He and Caroline Rosina Potter were married in Huddersfield on 2/2/1905 (their wedding photo has very ornate furniture in the background) and then lived in Newport, Monmouthshire where Dad was born on 30th April 1910, after Eveline (1906) and before John (30/7/1914) and they lived at Claremont, Dyke Road, Brighton in about 1918 (photo of the house when John D Burrough was three and a half).
It's difficult to establish where the family lived and at which dates. Granddad received a letter on 4th June 1920 addressed to H G Burrough at Upper Belgrave Road, Clifton, Bristol from Kings College, Cambridge regarding Barn Orchard and a legal document dated 31/12/1924 addressed to 26 Duchess Road, Clifton, Bristol regarding the estate of Maria, his mother.
1925 Armstrong Siddeley at Longleat Park in 1925
There is a London & Scottish car insurance policy 214489 dated 31st March 1925 premium £16.17.6 in the name of H G Burrough at Muir Avon, Abbots Leigh, Bristol, for a 1925 Armstrong Siddeley 14.4 HP five-seater HU 2375 value £375 (probably a new car) then for a 1927 Armstrong Siddeley 20 HP five-seater HU 7853 value £400 endorsed 5/1/1927 (new car) so granddad and granny probably both lived there. The policy is shown as transferred to Mrs C R Burrough at Muiravon on 31st March 1927, so it may have been in 1927 that granddad and granny separated just after a big family car had been bought by granddad.
Photos show John aged 8 with a pony called Sue (who definitely lived at Abbots Leigh) ie about 1922 so it seems that some of the family had moved to Muir Avon, Abbots Leigh, Bristol around 1922 but granddad was addressed at Duchess Road in 1924 so that doesn't tally as granddad was addressed at Abbots Leigh in 1925 in the insurance document. So the family were at Abbots Leigh in about 1922, granddad was in Duchess Road in 1924 then at Abbots Leigh in 1925 on the insurance document. Was granddad living at Abbots Leigh after the insurance was transferred to his wife in 1927 and before granny had an insurance policy at 6 Clifton Down Road in 1931, or even between 1924 and 1927? It's confusing. Perhaps 26 Duchess Road in 1924 was granddad's YMCA office. In photo albums of holidays in Devon and Cornwall from 1923 granddad is never seen except for one photo in 1924 where a man is seen with a lady and two children (all unnamed but the man could be granddad) and another in 1925 showing a man at a scout camp on Exmoor who doesn't look like granddad with a woman and child, so granddad may have been living separately in Bristol.
The children may have cycled to school at Clifton across the suspension bridge from Abbots Leigh. It seems probable that the two boys went to Clifton College preparatory school (about 400 yards away) or to the senior school or in the case of Eve to Clifton High School while still at Upper Belgrave Road before they moved to Abbots Leigh. John was sent to Kelly College when older as he suffered from a chest problem and the fresher air was considered good for him. At Abbots Leigh the family had a pony (Sue), dog (Micky) and bantams.
Hedley Burrough in 1950s
at Barn Orchard, Broad Chalke
Granddad retired and went back to his childhood village of Broad Chalke to look after his spinster sister Nellie. His mother Maria died in 1924 when granddad was 48. He wouldn't have had any employment income and only a small pension if he retired in 1927 aged 51 after separating from granny but I'm not sure exactly when he left Bristol but it seems to be between 1925 (car insurance date) and 1927. Perhaps he retired at age 50 in 1926. Granddad was a member of the Congregational Church, grace before dinner, no alcohol, etc. while granny was C of E so there may been a religious reason why they separated.
Granny Burrough never worked but had to bring up three children through public school, taking holidays in Devon and Cornwall. Dad used to mention his maternal grandfather (Potter) occasionally and I believe he must have financed his daughter. He was senior partner in his firm of solicitors Potter, Sandford & Co. in the Strand with a large house in the Home Counties, so he was probably quite rich. Dad asked me in the 1980s to look for his grave in Highgate cemetery, so Dad must have thought well of him. I went there but was asked for the date of death which I didn't have and Dad didn't know, so the grave was never found. I have since found that Bruce Hersee Potter died on 11th November 1915 so perhaps granny had an inheritance to support the children, although when she died in the 1950s Dad said she didn't have much. She also had some money from the Will of John Dennett Potter, probably her uncle. Since the Bruce and John Potter Wills and estate documents are with the Burrough family, perhaps granny was the only child of Bruce while John Potter didn't have any children. Bruce Potter's wife Caroline Rose Hannah Beckford died at Hastings on May 26th 1889 aged 26 so she probably didn't have any more children after granny was born in 1883 (photo of her memorial). Bruce lived at Malton Lodge, Reigate.
Granny Burrough had an insurance policy addressed to 6 Clifton Down Road in 1931. There were nine smaller, mainly cheaper and older cars insured between 1931 and 1937 including a new Morgan in 1937 (Dad bought this by cheque and got a call from his bank manager about being overdrawn but it seems that it was insured by granny). Nine cars over six years is a lot, but Tom's and John's cars were probably on their mother's insurance. Some cars are listed as a change, but the Sunbeam, Hillman and Daimler are not shown as changed, so perhaps these existed alongside one of the ones listed as a change, so either two or three (but not four) at a time as Eve had a job in London at the Bank of England and didn't drive.
A Daimler Coupe is listed last and undated on the insurance document and was still owned in about 1954. It seems that granny probably owned it first then Dad borrowed the Daimler in August 1946 (photo), had his own Talbot 2-seater in September 1946 (photo), then swapped it for the 4-seater Daimler after Axel was born and granny took the Talbot. When Dad bought the Bentley the Daimler may have been returned to granny Burrough as it is shown outside the New House in about 1954.
The London & Scottish car insurance policy is dated 10th April 1931, renewable on 31st March 1932, premium £23.9.5 in the name of Mrs C R Burrough at 6 Clifton Down Road, Bristol for various cars over a period to 1937. Clifton Down Road is fairly near Upper Belgrave Road where they appear to have lived in 1920 but I don't think 6 Clifton Down Road would be the same house as they lived in Abbots Leigh in between those dates. Upper Belgrave Road is north of the Zoo, then the road (as Clifton Down) curves round past the fountain at the top of Bridge Valley Road, then curves around to Christ Church and then becomes Clifton Down Road and more built up as it goes down the hill towards Regent Street, so the Upper Belgrave house and the Clifton Down Road house were probably over a mile apart.
The policy refers to:
a 1927 Sunbeam 20.9 HP Touring five-seater YC 1280 value £200,
8/1/1932: a 1921 Standard 11.6 HP Touring Two and Dickey T 9766 value £65 (this car is listed below the Sunbeam and above the Peugeot in the list but there isn't an endorsement for it),
a 1926 Peugeot 6.4 HP two-seater HU 6444 value £30 in place of the Standard,
8/6/1933: a 1930 Morris Cowley 12 HP two-seater FB 5983 value £15.10.0 in place of the Peugeot,
a 1933 Hillman 9.8 HP Coupe four-seater CV 7487 value £145, (this car is listed below the Morris Cowley and above the Austin 7 in the list but there isn't an endorsement for it),
4/1/1934: a 1929 Austin 7 7.8 HP two-seater VP 4770 value £40 in place of the Morris Cowley,
1/4/1936: a 1933 Ford 8 HP four-seater LJ 7315 value £75 in place of the Austin,
2/4/1937: a 1937 Morgan 10 HP two-seater DHU 989 value £200 in place of the Ford, (Dad said he bought a new Morgan soon after getting his first job and got a call from his bank manager concerned about his overdraft, so perhaps this is the Morgan but insured by his mother),
a 1935 Daimler 15 HP Coupe two-seater BHW 152 value £250, (this car was seen with Dad in 1946 and also in about 1950 so was probably the last car covered by this policy).
Notice how the Sunbeam was a five-seater valued at £200, then the cars get smaller and cheaper (perhaps after granny had separated from granddad) before getting more expensive again. The Hillman can't be placed precisely.
Granny had moved to Grasmere (later renamed The New House), Frenchay Common, (officially Beckspool Road), Bristol after Dad had left school presumably after 10th April 1931 (car insurance date at 6 Clifton Down Road) and he mentioned that every day of the week a different house had an open evening so young people could socialise, probably around a tennis court.
Dad's brother John married the girl next door, (Frenchay House, owned by Mr Guest) and taught at Summer Fields preparatory school but he was killed by a bomb when walking back to his ship (HMS Mackay) in Plymouth on the night of 21st April 1941 (as paper clipping and Plymouth memorial as referred to on Clifton Rugby Football Club website although other references by granddad say 21st or 22nd April and a telegram dated 24th April from Eve to Frenchay says killed last night) when he was in the RNVR.
Grasmere was given to Dad by granny Burrough during the second world war, probably as a marriage gift, and she moved out to a cottage on a steep hill in Compton Martin for the rest of her life.
Tom and John in the Armstrong Siddeley 1925 (aged 15 and 11)
The New House; Tom, Helen and probably Axel with the Daimler; John and Axel in the Talbot; all photos about 1950
Tom Burrough (born 30th April 1910)
Thomas Hedley Bruce Burrough was educted at Clifton College Preparatory School and Senior School in Clifton, Bristol where he was a good athlete, particularly sprinting and long jump.
Dad trained as an architect at The Royal West of England School of Architecture in Bristol and was articled to Oatley and Lawrence's practice until the Second World War. He set up his own practice with Francis Hannam after the War and later David Morris joined the partnership. Dad lectured at the school of architecture, mainly on history of architecture. He was a member of the Society of Architectural Historians.
He was a member of the Territorial Army and also a member of Westbury Harriers (sprinting, long jump and shot put) and competed for Gloucestershire and played rugby for Clifton Rugby Club and for Gloucestershire.
During the War he trained sappers at various places in Berkshire including Littlecot House and met Helen Mary Dickson at this time whom he married on 18th October 1941. They rented River Cottage, Boxford until they moved to Grasmere (later called The New House), Frenchay in about 1943 probably after I was born in Newbury.
Late in the War he went to Italy to join the 8th Army chasing the retreating Germans up Italy into Austria, often ahead of our troops, mending blown bridges and reopening brickworks. Later he built refugee camps in Austria. He mentioned that the army organised concerts with the refugees, using any refugee who could sing or play an instrument.
After the War, in the 1950s, he took the family on holiday to Austria and Italy and we visited places and people he had known including a steep mountain pass where he had seen a German Army surrender and lay down its arms. He was billetted with a family called Neumerkel in Klagenfurt; the husband was a doctor presumably conscripted into the German Army and he was lost on the Russian Front. No details of his death were known and his body was never found. Contact with the wife and son continued until my mother died in 2013. We also visited a man who had sent a profile of his feet to Dad so that he could have a pair of boots made in Bristol which we took out to him.
Both my parents were artists and exhibited at The Royal West of England Academy where they both became members and Dad was on the committee in the 1970s.
Dad was an artist member of the Bristol Savages that met in the Wigwam behind The Red Lodge (a museum) for sketching every Wednesday evening for a subject chosen by the member whose turn it was to chair the evening. Afterwards music members and general members would arrive and all would be entertained by music or recitations of poetry, etc. but essentially it was a businessman's club after the sketching. I was taken there once and found it appallingly smoky as all the men seemed to be smoking pipes or cigars in an unventilated room and whisky and beer flowed. It was a men-only club but there were events with squaws occasionally. Once Dad went out for the day on a sand dredger into the Bristol Channel for some sketching and I saw a photo of some of them bathing in the hold of salty water on a lovely sunny day. The owner was a Savage.
During the 1950s and 1960s Dad played cricket for the Somerset Stragglers and was the captain of the Sunday 2nd Eleven for Clifton Cricket Club.
Have a look at this Flickr page for a photo of Tom and some of Tom's architectural works.
Have a look at these photos: Family about 1950 and Family cars and Helen Burrough and The Old House.
John Burrough (born 16th February 1943)
My overriding memory of the late 1940s and early 1950s is of the drone of piston-engined planes from Filton aerodrome in hot, dry, sunny days in the garden, including, in the early 1950s, the Brabazon with four sets of double contra-rotating propellors, with wings that flapped six feet up and down. The plane never entered service for economic reasons. The Britannia (the whispering giant) was developed from it in the 1950s and the Britannia was extremely successful in service until the 1970s. On one occasion a testing flight crash-landed on the mudflats near Severn Beach without loss of life and hardly damaged.
About 1950: I remember getting into the dickie seat of a Talbot to go to my Kindergarten school. Granny Burrough had a Daimler 1935 Rye Cabriolet which Dad must have borrowed in August 1946 as he used his own Talbot in September 1946 and then they were swapped so that Dad could have the 4-seater Daimler after Axel was born (in November 1946). There are small photos obviously from the same roll of film showing both cars; granny Burrough appears in one photo.
About 1950: I remember being taken back to Frenchay from Compton Martin by granny in a beige 4-seater saloon which may have been a Wolseley in about 1950.
About 1950: Dad had a 1934 Bentley after the Daimler (about 1950) which was converted into a shooting brake by a firm at Frampton Cotterell, which I visited with Dad just before the conversion was finished.
It had a small lever between the front seats that opened the exhaust pipe so that the silencer was bypassed and you could hear the roar of the engine. I often asked Dad to use it, but he didn't usually oblige unfortunately. I don't know why the car had that device.
The garage at The New House wasn't long enough for the Bentley and Dad built an extension in concrete blocks and then got a friend to help him put the large old rear door on top as a roof which was covered in felt.
The New House had a lot of character, dark mahogany panelled doors (The Old House had only painted panelled doors), odd-shaped rooms, areas of different dates including a back area obviously older than The Old House, a more interesting cellar with a large open water tank full of water in a very dark corner and so on.
Dad had the wall between the hall and living room removed and a long RSJ inserted so that the stone-flagged hall became part of an enlarged living room. The oak front door was stripped of paint and later a glass door placed just outside it. The main entrance was then through the side yard door which accessed the back of the hall opposite the staircase. A stone trough was placed across the path to the front door and for a while many people tripped over it trying to get to the old front door.
There was a large iron hoop fixed to the wall near the garage door which was used to tether horses and the front and back doors of the garage were large enough for a carriage to pass through. There was a manger in the shed at the end of the yard.
The old kitchen in the back part of The New House had a large dresser and we used that room as our dining room. Dad had a glass insulating block window made in the wall next to the Frenchay House access. The room had its stove replaced by a high level wood fire platform. The front room the other side of the hall passage from the living room was used as the dining room when I was very young and continued to be called the dining room after we used the old kitchen and I used the dining room for my homework.
The front of the yard loft area was covered by an enormous clematis. One day when I was in my teens I decided to give it a hard prune but unfortunately it never recovered.
We used to walk to Hambrook past a pond on Beckspool Road and along a narrow path through the middle of a field with a stone wall on both sides. The last time I looked, more than thirty years ago, the wall on one side had collapsed virtually completely and the other side wasn't in good shape. However, the pond was cleaned out and brought back into a decent condition. The outer ring road from the M32 was built right across the field and I used to watch the earthmoving equipment.
The New House was one of a few large houses around the common, established largely by Quakers and non-conformists as they were banned from holding meetings within five miles of the city centre. The city boundary ran along the back garden wall of The Old House, Clarendon House and Frenchay House while The New House was wedged into a triangle between Clarendon House and Frenchay House with no back garden. The south side of the common had two steep hills down to the River Frome with lots of little stone-built cottages.
1958: We moved to The Old House in 1958 and Mum and I moved a lot of stuff fifty yards along the pavement in a big old pram. You can see photos of The Old House in this link to Flickr.
There was a Bristol 401 or 403 after the Bentley. On the last leg home after one holiday a bottle of wine broke and soaked into the carpet. The car smelt of stale wine for evermore.
Have a look at these photos of some of My cars.
