a. Charles Braby [1818-1884] and Fanny Wilson
One final link with Rudgwick needs to be briefly explored. James Braby (4) had ten
children, including James and John, from whom all the family members so far described
are descended. Another was Charles who branched out as a hay and straw merchant, and
married Fanny Wilson in 1855. His partnership with James Staff at Baltic Wharf,
Lambeth ended in 1860. The eldest of their four children was Walter (1855-1935).
Walter married Minnie Patterson; they also had four children, three of whom have
connections in the Rudgwick area.
b. School Principals, Herbert Wilson Braby and Sidney Gerald Braby
The Mill House at Gibbons Mill, Rudgwick, to where
Pennthorpe School first moved in 1939.
Herbert and Sidney were joint principals of
the strongly Christian Pennthorpe School in
Church Street, Rudgwick, when the school,
which had evacuated in the war from Mead
Road, Chislehurst, Kent to The Mill House
Gibbons Mill, in The Haven, Rudgwick,
relocated to Gaskyns, then recently vacated
by the Canadians who used it in the war up to and after the D-Day landings. The school,
under the Braby brothers’ direction, was at Gibbons Mill from 1939, and at Gaskyns
from 1948. Gaskyns is a large house built about 1891 for the Barker family, who sold it
to David Jamilly before the war. He it was who sold it to the school. The school assures
me the brothers founded the school in 1930. One of the young staff in Chislehurst was
Prebendary Winnington Kennedy-Bell, later a well known broadcaster.
Pennthorpe School, Gaskyns, Rudgwick, 1955
The brothers still ran the school up to
1955-6, when the author was briefly there.
A school photograph shows both brothers
alongside Dennis ‘Chalky’ White, who
became the first non-Braby to be
Principal. Miss Hebditch, my class
teacher, and Mr Hubbard, the young but
frighteningly sporty games teacher, who
put me off team games for life, and just 50
pupils. I was not particularly happy there,
and thank my parents that I was not a
boarder. I remember that “Mr Herbert”,
the senior principal, would beat boys with a walking stick (not me - I was only ever
beaten by Mr White, with a cane!). “Mr Sidney” is seared on my memory for an
incident in Assembly when he totally ‘lost it’ one morning and had to be escorted out
very red of face and no doubt with seriously raised blood pressure, and incapable of
continuing his diatribe, the subject of which I forget, or perhaps never understood. Miss
Hebditch by contrast was a delightful lady of impeccable credentials with an interest in
nature study and gardening which did inspire me (I won the gardening competition, and
still use the trowel prize). Compared to its current success, Pennthorpe was very small,
very male (with the exception of Miss Hebditch) and very 1950s.
Herbert’s wife, Mary, had died in 1948; Herbert died in 1964, both buried in Rudgwick.
After his retirement, he had moved to Haywards Heath. Sidney lived in Brighton until
1
his death in 1969, his wife, Alexandrina, having pre-deceased him there in 1940. Like
several other Brabys before him Sidney had opted for Brighton. Both brothers had been
conscientious objectors in World War 1, and had served in the RAMC.
Pennthorpe School staff and pupils, Rudgwick, 1955.
l to r, Mr ??, Mr H Braby, Miss Hebditch, Mr White, Mr S Braby (with dog), Matron, Mr Hubbard .
The author is 4th from left in the row behind the staff.
Pennthorpe today is no longer a boarding school, but is a very successful independent
prep school, catering for children from Kindergarten to Year 8. The classrooms continue
to occupy Gaskyns, but numerous specialist buildings have been erected around the site.
c. Roland Braby, Vicar of Loxwood
Rev Roland Braby at the author’s christening, Loxwood, 1946 (enlarged from
family snap)
Herbert and Sidney’s bother, Reverend Roland Braby, was educated
at Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, entered the church, and spent
20 years of his ministry as Vicar of Loxwood, where in 1946 he
baptised the author, and features in the photograph taken at our
home afterwards. I remember him well from later Sunday School
days at which my mother played the piano as we attempted to sing
rousing hymns, Onward Christian Soldiers being a firm favourite of
us boys. I remember him as a kindly but very traditional teacher, again very 1950s.
After spells in London and Exeter, he came to Loxwood in about 1935, leaving for a
short ministry in Trotton. My Mum and Dad, being prominent members of the local
church, knew him and his wife Kathleen well, and kept in touch with them there and in
their retirement, also in Haywards Heath. No doubt, this association with the Brabys
helped them decide to send me to Pennthorpe. Roland Braby died in Brighton in 1969,
the same year as Sidney. He and his wife Kathleen are buried in Loxwood churchyard.
2
Vicar of Loxwood, 1935-1954.
Conclusion
This story has moved, perhaps, bewilderingly to some readers, from the Surrey-Sussex
border villages to Lambeth, then to several locations in Camden, taking in factory
locations in Euston and Deptford. Before moving back to Sussex and Surrey, there were
interludes in several places in Kent. However, this migration had a pattern familiar to
geographers of the pull of the city and the push out again, first to a more salubrious
suburb (Camden) then to the Kent countryside (in both cases as they were then) once
success had been achieved, over just two generations. It could so easily have been that
they remained in the industrial slums, but the immediate success of the various Braby
enterprises is a notable subplot to the main one of family history.
The Brabys were as far as research has shown, an honourable lot, with a sound work
ethic, Christian beliefs, and willingness to serve the community. No evidence has
emerged of industrial unrest or acts, criminal or otherwise against Braby employers
(other than the redundancies inevitable on the 20th century decline of Frederick Braby &
Co). Their inventiveness, their ability to spot the next business move and where
necessary to work in partnership contributed to their success. Nevertheless, this would
not have been possible without the Industrial Revolution which provided the raw
materials, the manufacturing processes, the factory system and developments in
transport, the last so fundamental to the wheelwright’s business, initially giving
opportunity, but ultimately bringing about its demise. Moreover, growing prosperity at
home, and in the Empire, provided an expanding market, of which Frederick Braby and
his successors took full advantage. The James Braby businesses by contrast provided
examples of an astonishing number of inventions, but not perhaps the wherewithal to
create a large and lasting enterprise. In the end, the last generation took no part in
business. James Braby at Maybanks comes across as the kind of inventor for which
Britain is well known, plenty of ideas. Did he lack the will to make a business from
3
them, or did he foresee the futility of competing with the emerging giants in the railway,
machinery and other engineering companies?
This research began as an attempt to make sense of a family that contributed so much
to the parish of Rudgwick, despite the main characters never having lived in the parish.
That much remains true, but the connections mounted up as research progressed. The
first connection was the marriage of James Braby and Frusannah Butcher in 1763, the
last was the burial of Herbert Braby in 1964. Two hundred years is a considerable
achievement. It was the two sibling marriages to the Churchman sisters that cemented
the connection. It diverted the Brabys from their migration towards Kent, and brought
them back close to the locality of their ancestors. It provided them with a stake in the
land. It enabled them to become part of the Victorian squirarchy, James in Ewhurst/
Rudgwick/Loxwood, and John in Horsham. It is particularly gratifying to have found
photographs of both of them, and to see how different they were.
As no Brabys were born in Rudgwick, there have never been any Braby baptism in the
church. There were, however, marriages in 1763,1764, 1771, 1821, 1829, 1874 and
1884. Similarly, funerals were held in Rudgwick in 1770, 1771, 1799, 1807, 1828,
1865, 1886, 1899, 1907, 1913, 1922, 1937, 1948 and 1964 (14 altogether). Not one
‘BMD’ was in Ewhurst. Most of these were of the families of successive James Brabys.
As noted above, the link could so easily have been broken when James and Hannah
moved to Camden in north London.
John and James Braby constantly refer to themselves at a Rudgwick address, including
Maybanks (this partly reflects accepted Post Office practice of proximity to a railway
station). Lasting memorials to the Brabys are found in Sussex. In Rudgwick alone, there
is the east window of the parish church, the Jubilee Hall, the name Martlet in the centre,
to an extent even the old railway line itself, and not forgetting the development of
education in the village (no less than three schools). In Slinfold, there is the village hall,
in Horsham there are the lodge and cottage of Wimblehurst. We may speculate that
Wheelwright Close in Ockley, Surrey was the location of the Braby business that
moved to Lambeth.
Sadly, there is nothing to show for the Braby presence in Lambeth. Although research
has shown locations, the pace and extent of redevelopment in the South Bank has
obliterated all traces. In Camden, some addresses may still exist, but numbering of
London streets, and their names have changed. Stanstead Lodge, Forest Hill, was
however a surprise find, in its restored glory.
Lastly, it must be admitted that there are still some outstanding questions for which no
answer has so far been found. Where were James Braby and his son in the 1841 census
(and the elder one in 1851)? What is the true story of the speculation around the
handover of Maybanks from Churchman to Braby? Where is the evidence for a Braby
lay Rectorship of Rudgwick as early as the 1820s? Did they really own Parsonage
Farm? What education did the successful James’s have? Where is the evidence to back
up Frederick’s claim for the purchase of land for Wimblehurst? By the side of the
successful uncovering of the sagas both in Rudgwick and London, these are not many,
and perhaps some will prove soluble one day
4
Acknowledgements
I am immensely grateful for information to support this Rudgwick and family history
from Valerie Smith, great grand daughter of Agnes Braby, and great, great
granddaughter of Frederick Braby, and whose personal link to the James Braby
succession is through James (4) who died in 1846.
Jane Masri whose research is into the Brabys of Sussex, particularly those in
Pulborough and Coldwaltham, has provided invaluable insights into the earliest Brabys.
Jane is a descendent of Warnham Brabys.
Janet Balchin, Ewhurst History Society, has been very helpful in letting me have a copy
of the Society’s History of Maybanks (2003), from which I have been able to freely
quote, and interpret. Her book, Ewhurst Houses and People, Ewhurst History
Society,2006 has also been quoted from. The Society’s bibliography led me to the
photograph of James Braby in a book at Surrey History Centre.
Susan Djabri has given me several important leads in Horsham, including to John
Braby’s draft Will.
Jonathon Myles-Lea has kindly given his permission to include his painting of
Maybanks.
English Heritage, Survey of London: volume 23: Lambeth: South Bank and Vauxhall
Sir Howard Roberts and Walter H. Godfrey (editor) 1951, is a very thorough history of
the areas of Lambeth referred to in this document. Unfortunately it does not mention the
Brabys. The range of other industries and well known institutions and buildings in
Lambeth was something with which they must have been very familiar, as they would
have been with some of the slums of the early 19th century.