PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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Mr Joseph Pearce Brown was born at Rochdale, Lancashire, in 1850. His brother, John, was born in Darlington, County Durham, in 1853. It is presumed that their father was Mr Thomas Brown, the younger and only brother of Mr Eldred Roberts Brown, a partner in the firm of Messrs Brown, Wills and Nicholson, in Plymouth. After gaining early experience in the grocery trade in London and Scotland, Mr Joseph Pearce Brown arrived in Plymouth in 1880 to join the family business. His younger brother appears to have to have come to Plymouth at around the same time, no doubt in response to the fact that the health of their uncle, Mr Eldred Roberts Brown, was failing. When he died in February 1885 they took over and ran it with Mr Thomas Nicholson. In 1896, following Plymouth's boundary extension to take in Compton Gifford, Mr Brown became one of the Ward's representatives on the Town Council. He was elected Mayor of Plymouth in 1917/18 and again in 1918/19, during which he presented the Freedom of the Borough to HRH the Prince of Wales and to the American Ambassador, Doctor Page. He also welcomed the first American airmen to fly across the Atlantic. Mr Brown was particularly interested in social reform and housing argued that the war on slum housing could not be won by private enterprise nor by the rates: it was the responsibility of national government. Like his uncle, he served on the Plymouth School Board, partly as vice-chairman, and also served as chairman of both the Port of Plymouth Chamber of Commerce and the Plymouth Mercantile Association, during which time he encouraged the purchase by the Town of Beaumont Park for the benefit of the residents. Under their guidance, the business took over the former Bedford Brewery in Alexandra Road, Lipson, Plymouth, in 1921 and turned it into one of the largest meat factories in the County. Mr Joseph Pearce Brown CBE JP, senior partner of the business, died at his home, "Chievely", in Seymour Road, Plymouth, on July 14th 1936, at the age of 87 years. During his life he had helped to found the Civic Guild of Help and had been a churchwarden of St John the Evangelist, Sutton-on-Plym. Mr Brown was buried at Efford Cemetery, the arrangements having been carried out by Messrs Popham's Ltd. He was survived by his widow, Mrs Catherine J Brown, and their sons, Kenneth, Harold, Ralph, James, Charles, and two daughters, Dorothy and Muriel.
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