Look! A photo from QVMAG of a Peter Brown outside a Beaconsfield butcher shop, that isn’t owned by a Stonehouse or a Brown!
Who is this young Peter Brown, and is he a traitor to the family?!
According to the museum, it’s the early 1900s and Peter Brown is the boy on the white horse.
I’d say he’s about 10?
Peter Laurence George Brown was born in 1897 at West Tamar to Peter Brown and Emma Ada nee Moore. The informant of his birth was family friend, A Stonehouse, from Sidmouth. So all the right names in the right places for him to be part of “my” butchering dynasty, but how does he fit in?
Peter’s father was aged 21 when he married Emma Ada in 1890, so Peter snr was born about 1869.
There he is! He was born in 1869 at Silvermines (Winkleigh) to William Brown and Mary nee Scott.
When Mary Scott married William Brown in 1860, she was an 18 year old widow, the poor child!
She was likely Mary Kerrison who married Robert Scott in 1856, when she was 15. She and Robert had one daughter, Caroline, who died, before Robert was killed when he was kicked by a bull in June 1859.
Baby Caroline died of “hooping” cough in April 1860. She was buried under her mother’s maiden name, but this may be a mistake and should be Caroline “Kerrison Scott,” certainly the maths adds up for her to be Robert Scott’s daughter. Mary married for a second time – as an 18 year old widow – in July 1860.
In the 1860s Beaconfield is still not a place, and family events are all recorded as “West Tamar.”
Back to the Browns. William, who married Mary Scott nee Kerrison, was a brother of Peter Brown who married Lydia Stonehouse nee Freeman.
Therefore the Peter in the photo is the grandson of “my” Peter’s brother.
If you’re interested in the Browns there’s an amazing website here about them. This site says that the Peter Brown at the butchers in the photo had lost his father in 1905.
In the era this photo was taken, there were Brown butchers in Beaconsfield, including a Peter Brown! The boy in the photo was likely working to help his family due to the death of his father, and maybe he’s in the photo because was working for the O’Keefes? With butchering in his own family the O’Keefe’s might have seen him as a good fit. Perhaps he was nothing to do with the O’Keefe’s or with butchers, but was going past and saw the camera and wanted to be part of it?
On to the O’Keefes.
Was there some sort of family feud? Look! Not only were they butchers, but in the 1911 election an O’Keefe and Brown – both butchers – both stood for the same seat!
The older man on the right hand side of the photo is Edmund O’Keefe, described in Nigel Burch’s book, as being from a well known crime family! Edmund’s biggest claim to fame is that he was implicated in the Beaconsfield Bank Robbery.
If young Peter Brown is working for the O’Keefe’s it’s interesting, as the O’Keefe’s were well known Irishmen, with Edmund being a supporter of William Smith O’Brien and the Young Irelanders Movement, while the Browns were of course instrumental in setting up the Supply River Methodist Church, but were themselves Irish!
The other little boy with Peter, on the smaller horse, is Albert Scott. Albert’s parents are Bertha Douglas and Robert Scott. Robert born 1868, to Robert Scott Snr and Maria Hind – according to his birth certificate, but I think his father may have been Matthew Scott, who married Maria Hind in 1866 in George Town… I don’t think there’s any relation to young Peter’s grandfather’s first wife who was also a Scott.
I started this off by joking about my shock that there’s a butcher in Beaconsfield who I’m not related to, and during this research I’ve come across this list of Tasmanian butchers in 1914. It seems there was also a Robert V Jillett running a butchers in the town. He would be Robert Victor Jillett, who was a bit of a blow-in, being born in 1872 in Oatlands to a father who wasn’t a butcher. When Robert Victor died he was considered to be a farmer, not a butcher.
The First Ball I Took Your Mother To 