Story
Hamworthy motor driver Walter Brown was a single man when he joined the Army in 1916. But he married on Christmas Eve of the following year and, shortly afterwards, was posted to France. He first enlisted on 3 March 1916, having, in the past, served in the Territorial Army for three years with the 4 Dorsets. But he wasn't called up until 10 October that year. In between, however, he had a medical examination which gave him a category of C1 – meaning he was fit to serve at home but not abroad. That category would change in the course of the war when he was deemed fit enough to serve in France. He was 22 years and four months old when first examined in August 1916 when his height was recorded as 5ft 6.5ins. He had a 38ins chest and weighed 9st 6lb. Private Brown joined the Army Service Corps, Motor Transport section, and, initially, was stationed at Grove Park in Lee, South East London. In January 1917, however, he was posted to Hitchin in Hertfordshire. It was while serving there, that Walter Brown got married. The ceremony took place on 24 December 1917 and his bride was a young Devon woman called Muriel Alison Stone. They married in her home parish of St Michael's at West Hill, near Ottery St Mary and the service was witnessed by her parents. Muriel Alison, however, was, at the time or soon after, not living at home but at 'B Block, Ordnance Hostels, Barras Heath, Coventry'. The nearby Coventry Ordnance Works designed and built, for example, howitzers, military bi-planes and naval guns, though whether she was working there or not is not known. Private Brown served for a year and 241 days at home before, after the second medical examination that changed his category from C1 to B1, he was sent to serve with the Army Service Corps in France. His record shows his qualifications included 'Studebaker' – the American car manufacturers that supplied motor wagons, cars and ambulance to the British Army. He sailed from Southampton to Le Havre on the "Huntscraft" on 8 June 1918, then went on to Rouen. He was then posted to many depots in France, including a spell with the Canadians, during his year and 178 days abroad. Finally, Private Brown returned home in early December 1919 and served for one last month before being demobbed just before the start of the New Year. He gave his address for any outstanding payments to be made as Broad Oak, West Hill, Ottery St Mary, where his wife came from, but Walter and Muriel would subsequently live In Poole. Walter William Ernest Brown was born on 7 June 1894 in Poole and baptised on 5 August at St Clement's Church in what was then called Kinson, now the Newtown area of Poole. He was the son of Walter Wallace Brown, a labourer who had married 18-year-old Eliza Cherrett when he was 22. Eliza had been born in Constitution Hill, Poole, and would have several children. The Browns were living in Lagland Street when the son they called Walter was born. By 1901, seven years or so later, their address was Main Road in Hamworthy, and father, Walter senior, was employed in a pottery making tessellated tiles. By 1911, the Browns had moved to 2 Fair View Road in Hamworthy and Walter senior was working as a labourer in a timber yard. His wife, Eliza, had had eight children but one4, probably a daughter born after son Walter, had died. Walter, now 16, had a job as a timber carter. (An older brother, Albert, 20, was a soldier and a younger brother, Percy, 13 worked as a paper boy at the railway station.) At some point in the next six years, Walter met Muriel Alison Stone, who came from Ottery St Mary, nearly 70 miles away. Muriel was the daughter of a naval pensioner called George Stone and his younger wife Elizabeth who had been born in Cornwall. They had had 13 children though, like the Browns, one had passed away. The Stones, including Muriel, then 13, were still living in Ottery St Mary, although one daughter, probably the oldest, had been born in Christchurch, then in Hants. After the war, Walter registered as an elector at the address of 2 Fair View, Lower Ham Road in Hamworthy. He and Muriel then started a family. It is believed a daughter, Yvonne, was born on 5 October 1920 and her birth registered in Christchurch. A second daughter, Jeanne came along on 6 August 1924. (They may have had other children.) The Brown family was still living at Fair View into the 1930s (and a Walter Brown was registered in the Kelly's Directory as living in Ivor Road, Hamworthy and then in Blandford Road after that.) In the year when the Second World War began, Walter, Muriel, Yvonne and Jeanne were living together at 14 Beaufort Road in Bournemouth's Southbourne district. Walter was a traveller (a rep) for a confectioners (though the record implies that in later years he was known as Ernest and worked as a chauffeur and a warehouseman). Muriel was a housewife and daughter Yvonne was a shorthand typist. Younger sister Jeanne was still a schoolgirl. Before the war was over, Yvonne would marry in Bournemouth a man by the name of Norman Hixson. She (and her husband) would later move back to Poole. Sister Jeanne, it is believed, married in 1949. The groom was a man called Francis E Dean and the ceremony took place in the Bournemouth area. Their mother, Walter's wife Muriel, then of 53 Hambledon Road, Bournemouth, died on 30 May 1975. A Walter William Ernest Brown, of Medway Drive, Keynsham, Somerset, died two years later, on 19 December 1977.