Preston Hospital School

[Puffin]

I have a sampler dated 1841 and this was originally wrapped in brown paper. On this brown paper was written:
name - "Mary Brown"
date - "1840"
"Preston Hospital School"

I also know that Mary Brown was born in 1827 in Castle Bromwich and she was married in 1848 in Birmingham.

I can find no information anywhere about Preston Hospital School :cry:. As Mary would only have been 13 in 1840, I wonder whether this would have been in the Midlands area rather than Preston, Lancashire.

Can anyone help with my quest for info about Preston Hospital School?


Moderator Note: Missing images replaced 15th August 2016

 

[ChrisM]

If you concentrate your search on "Preston Hospital" rather than "Preston Hospital School", Puffin, and stretch the geography to Shropshire, you may find a lead on this.

Preston Hospital was a (very stately, 18th c.) home for widows and orphaned girls, mainly drawn from the Bradford Estate (Weston Park) and located in the village of Preston-upon-the-Wealdmoors. I wasn't aware that there was a school associated with it but the girls would have had to be educated somewhere and this all predates the village school. So perhaps there was.

I know a bit more about this if you need it.

Chris

 

[Lloyd]

The 1841 Census has a 14 year old Mary Brown as a scholar at Preston Hospital, Preston upon the Wild Moors. It must be her!

 

[Puffin]

Thank you both. I'm sure it's her. Without the tapestry I don't think I'd have found her!

Do you have any idea where her younger brother would have been? He was Henry Brown, born in 1830 in Castle Bromwich.

I can't find him in the 1841 census :thumbsdown: but he is living with Mary and her husband in the 1851 census .

On Mary's marriage certificate in 1848, it shows her father as William Brown, Gardener. If he was deceased, would it have said so?

Thank you both again.

 

[ChrisM]

There was a Brown family in the village 40 years later, in the 1880s. They were farmers and are still in the churchyard. It's very doubtful that there would have been a connection though - it is too common a name.

Chris

 

[Puffin]

Interestingly, in 1841 there is a Brown family, William and Rebecca (Mary's parent's names) of the right age in Lilleshall - about 4 miles from Preston Hospital. I don't think it's the same family though. If it was, why would Mary have been at the hospital? I don't think she was ill - she went on to have 9 children between 1849 and 1869 and then she died in 1874. Her husband remarried within 6 months of her death - expect he needed help with the children. My great grandmother falsified her age on the marriage certificate to escape the 'wicked' step-mother!!

More research is needed into her brother Henry! :redface:

 

[ChrisM]

Puffin,

Don't be misled by the term "hospital". Whilst it is more usually these days a place where sick people go to be cured it can also refer to a charitable institution. That is what Preston Hospital was. It was endowed and built in the 1720s by a female member of the Bridgeman family (the family name of the Lords Bradford) in recognition, so it is said, of her miraculous rescue when she was lost in the Alps. Its function was to care for needy females, most usually widows and orphaned girls, and particularly those with an association with the family estates - ("12 poor women and 12 poor girls"). I do not know how the rules were applied at different times but I should imagine that it was quite feasible that they would have taken children in any circunstances where there was a clear case of need, whether or not the parents were still alive.

In those circumstances I feel that it is quite feasible that a Mary Brown of Lilleshall could have found herself in Preston Hospital, if for one reason or another it was difficult for her parents to care for her and especially if her father was employed on the estate. Areas in the vicinity of Lilleshall could certainly have been part of the Bradford estate which owned large parts of Shropshire.

In the 1940s, the girls disappeared and the residents were restricted to eldely ladies. In due course, this came to include elderly gentlemen as well. The organisation, run by a board of trustees, continues to exist to this day in its post-1940s form although in the last few years it has moved out of the magnificent old buildings into new premises in Newport, Shropshire. The buildings themselves of course survive - they are Grade 1 listed, built almost in the form of an Oxbridge college - but were converted to private residential use and sold off when the trust residents moved out.

There will certainly still be ladies alive today, by now in their 80s, who will have been brought up there in a way which Mary would have found familiar. And because the Trust still exists it may even be the case that original 19th century records survive.

This is an artist's impression of Preston Hospital.

Chris

Moderator note: Missing image replaced 15th August 2016

 

[Puffin]

Thank you for the photo - it looks a lovely place. I have been having trouble with Mary's father being a Shropshire coal miner in 1841 and 1851 but a gardener in Birmingham in 1848. I now think that the Brown family from Lilleshall is unrelated.

As both Mary and her brother were christened in Castle Bromwich I have been researching the relevant parish records. I have now found that Mary's mother died in 1835 aged 39 and it may be that her father died in 1837 although the record of surname and age is NOT clear.

I cannot find Mary's brother in the 1841 census (there are 4 possibilities) but I have found him for 1851 through 1891.

Without the wonderful info about Preston Hospital, I would still be floundering. I will continue my research and investigate whether any of the Preston Hospital records from 1840/1841 still survive.

Thank you once again.

 

[ChrisM]

I will continue my research and investigate whether any of the Preston Hospital records from 1840/1841 still survive.

I think my first port of call to establish availability and location of records and/or how to contact the Trustees would be the Estate Office at Weston Park. Another possibility is Preston Trust Homes at Newport.

Good luck with your research and let us know how you get on. (I should be especially interested if you find any further Preston-upon-the-Wealdmoors associations).

Chris

 

[Puffin]

I have now found 8 other children - Mary's and Henry's siblings. Mary's mother died in 1835 in Castle Bromwich where they all lived 1819 - 1841. Mary's father and two brothers were still in Castle Bromwich in the 1841 census. Mary's mother had 10 children in 21 years and died when the youngest was 4 months old. I can find no further records for this youngest child.

I think I have now found Mary's grandparents as well (in Sutton Coldfield).

Castle Bromwich Hall was owned by the Bridgeman family who were created Barons Bradford in 1792. Preston Hospital was owned by the same family so I think that is how Mary ended up there.

I am still searching to see if any original records still exist. I will report any finding here.

Thanks for your help and support.

 

[Puffin]

Update

I went to the current home in Newport and saw the warden. They moved from Preston and now have a new place in Newport. They also have the admission records of all of the girls from 1800. I found my Mary Brown. I took the sampler and also photographs of it.

I have also found records in Staffordshire Records Office. Mary's father, William Brown, was paying rent to the Bradford estate. He had a cottage in Castle Bromwich from 1836 to 1846. This seems to be why Mary went to Preston Hospital.

Staffordshire Record Office is also checking the Bradford papers for an estate map as I now have the cottage name.

I also went and saw the original building in Preston (from the outside). It has been sold and I think it is now flats following a major refurbishment. As it is still a Grade 1 listed building, the outside looks the same! The girls dormitory was on the first floor on the wing to the right of the main entrance.

Thank you Chris for your help.

 

[ChrisM]

Thank you for taking the trouble of reporting back, Puffin. All too often threads like this peter out and it is good to know that further researches bore fruit (and that Mrs L. came up trumps!).

A couple more images. One of Mary's wing and the other of the Great Hall where she would no doubt have eaten and perhaps had her lessons.

The vacating of the building by the trustees was something of a tragedy in the eyes of villagers. It had been an important part of village life for over 270 years and for several decades had been the main meeting point for social events. One assumes that the facilities which had safely and effectively served people, young and old, over that long period were deemed inadequate in the light of 21st-century regulations. And/or too expensive to bring up to date. Anyway, it was sold to a developer who converted it tastefully and provided a number of luxury apartments and houses. Apart from the new buildings behind it it's difficult to see much difference from the outside. This is all quite recent - around 2003/2004. Up to then I doubt whether much of the interior had changed significantly since Mary's time, although from what I can recall the upper floor of Mary's wing may well have been partitioned off to produce a number of smaller bedsits - probably after the girls moved out in the 1940s.

Do keep us posted with any further developments.

Chris

Moderator note - 15th August 2016: Images mentioned have regrettably been lost

 

[Puffin]

I am now chasing Tithe maps to see if I can find out exactly where Mary's father lived. They're not at Warwickshire Record Office but I think they may be at Birmingham City Archives in the Library - should find time in the next few days to go and see.

 

[ChrisM]

Thanks for posting those, Puffin. I have always thought that these things invariably had a religious content but this is obviously not the case. Mary would have had a pious education, though. I can visualise her, in an orderly file with her fellow inmates, traipsing every Sunday through the mud down the short track which linked the side of Hospital with the village church. And possibly more than once a day.

I had hoped that she might have tried to record one or two scenes from the village itself. But it looks as though everything comes out of her imagination. She would certainly have been surrounded by sheep and cattle (although I doubt whether the latter, even then, had antlers!)

Presumably the trees which look like Christmas trees could not have been, not at that time.

Chris

 

[ChrisM]

Just another fragment, Puffin.

I was talking today to a lady who recalls, from her earliest childhood, the line of girls walking to church. At that time they were dressed in red oufits, Little Red Riding Hood style. I don't know but I suspect that this might have been the dress right back to Mary's time and perhaps even beyond.

Chris

 

[foliot]

Preston Hospital School aagin

Hi Chris,

I have a family of browns who are the same as Puffins Mary Brown who was at preston School. There is a suggestion that her father met a 'sticky end' and that his cottage was demolished to maake way for two new ones for other workers.

 

[Puffin]

I would just like to report that I am in contact with other descendants of Mary Brown in Warwick UK, Auckland NZ and Australia.

Yes - William Brown, Mary's father, did come to a sticky end as he was killed in Birmingham in 1847 under Tindal Bridge (near both Birmingham Arena and the Sea Life Centre). I found newspaper articles and a death certificate which gave more details!

 

[Astoness]

hi puffin thanks for the update..how exactly did marys father die

lyn

 

[Lady Penelope]

What a brilliant thread and what a lot of information from Puffin and Chris M. Congratulations to everyone concerned, it made very interesting reading.

 

[Puffin]

The death certificate states "A blow to the head with the fist. Verdict Manslaughter by George Waight otherwise Badger. Duration of Illness - Death Immediate".