Strange names?One of the benefits of working on this story in partnership
has been that each of us has come with our own skill and prior knowledge.
So it didn't take long for Tracey to confirm that William and Florillo
were one and the same person. His birth registration (March quarter, 1877) actually records him as "Florillo William"; quite why there was the variation in his census entry,
which varies between William, Florillo, and Ferillo, we shall probably never know. Where they found the name Florillo, equally, I have no idea. I do
not know what it means or from where it comes: you, of course, may know better.
In which case, please let us know!
What is certain is that the family knew him as "Rillo". Sandra's letters make that quite clear.
In passing, it is also worth noting that Esau (born 1888) was registered as "Willie Esau" (sic), and Gershom as "Gershom Dan".
But what of Arraminta, Araminta, Artementer?
She first appears in Skerton in 1881, aged 7, as Artementer.
Tracey has a birth certificate for 15 March 1874, on which she is known as Arrmenter Brown.
She was not "at home" with her parents at
the time of the 1891 Census, when she would have been 17, but it didn't take long to locate her, either.
At the time of the census, she was resident at "Brick Kiln House" on the Lower Road, just where the Parish of Glemsford meets the parish of Cavendish.
She is registered as a "Domestic Servant"; no-one else is registered as living there ...
other, of course, than her sister, Martha.
Martha is recorded, on this 1891 census, as being 13, which would have put her birth date around 1878.
A little strange then, that the Register has her born in the June quarter of 1880, Tracey has a certificate giving her date of birth
as 17 May 1880, and the 1881 census, taken in March, records her as "10 months".
Far be it from me to suggest a Victorian terminological inexactitude, but all the evidence
points to her having been little over 11 when she was working at Brick Kiln.
Martha's letters of 1894 refer to her being "small".
Small wonder.
And Brick Kiln becomes central to the story of the Browns and their friends.
The key questions, really, are:
- who owned Brick Kiln?
- what was the link with the Browns?
- what happened to Rillo, Gershom, Alvah, Minnie, Martha, and the rest of them?
Sandra has compiled a digest of the progress of some of the Browns, which helps answer some of these questions. |
