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Church service on Sunday 2nd April 2017 in memory of William Brown, local mining engineer (1717-1782).  Hexham Courant, Friday 31st March 2017.  Norman font still in use today. William Brown was baptised here 300 years ago. Photo A Curtis (2015).
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Thursday 5th May 2016 Mining Institute, Neville Hall, Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, 6pm. Short lecture on the importance of William Brown by the author, Les Turnbull, followed by sales of his new book, The World of William Brown - Railways, Steam Engines & Coal Mines, with book signing and a drink in the library. Free event, all welcome.   Author, Les Turnbull, at Mining Institute book launch. Photo A Curtis (2016).
William Brown (1717-1782) A second blog about William Brown, one of this region's notable early mining engineers, with additional information on the family kindly provided by a relative, Anne Willoughby, who contacted me from Australia. As told in the first blog, there is a large slab near the outside south wall of St Andrew's Church engraved as 'The Family Burial Place of William Brown Esq.' There will be more about William Brown to come as we approach the tercentenary of his birth. Watch this space.  The Family Burial Place of William Brown Esq., St Andrew's Church, Heddon on the Wall. Photo A Curtis (2014). Anne Willoughby kindly provided a copy of the document drawn up in 1777 to obtain permission for this prominent and important burial site in the churchyard. Her transcription of the document is given below.
I first came across William Brown's name last year in my research work for the Puffing Billy Festival . The very short Wikipedia entry for Throckley tells us: One of Throckley's more notable residents was William Brown, who was a consulting engineer in the 18th century, and part owner of Throckley Colliery at the time, responsible for the construction of many colliery waggonways throughout the North East of England. There are a few details published about his work as an colliery engineer but very little appears to have been written about his private life. The year he was born seemed to be unknown and it was not known where he was buried. The commonness of his name doesn't help in this regard. A History Of Coal Mining In Great Britain By Robert L. Galloway (1882) is available as an eBook on the Durham Mining Museum website. Chapter XI provides the following information: Prominent among the builders of engines, as well as in promoting other improvements in the mechanical engineering of collieries in the Newcastle-on-Tyne district at this period, was William Brown, an eminent colliery viewer. Brown was brought up at Throckley, a village situated about six miles west of Newcastle, and was of an aspiring mind and endowed with much natural ability. The means of acquiring a knowledge of the various branches of colliery work were few at this time, but by dint of careful observation and making the most of such opportunities as he had, Brown was already possessed of superior attainments at an early period of his life, and subsequently succeeded in raising himself to the first position among the colliery viewers of his day. When I was trying to put some facts together about William Brown for a followup meeting in Throckley about the Puffing Billy Festival, the penny suddenly clicked; I had seen his gravestone in the graveyard of St Andrew's Church in Heddon. The common name and simple grave-slab, associated with a coat-of-arms, did interest me at the time I photographed the gravestones for this site. It is clearly a memorial for a family of some importance but I knew nothing of the man's reputation at that time.
The memorial is numbered [283] in the transcription of graveyard memorials. It is a very plain slab, flat to the ground surface, situated close to the outside east wall of the south aisle of the church. Apart from the coat of arms, the inscription is simple, with no dates: The family burial place of William Brown Esq. |
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