Tom Browning

Tom Browning was born in Canterbury in June 1861 [4]. In 1871 he was living at 2 Union Row near to the Brewery Tap Inn, off Ivy Lane in Canterbury, with his parents and family [1]. By 1881, he was employed as a brewers cooper making barrels for a brewery, and lodged with the Bush family at 54 Stour Street, St Mildred's, Canterbury [2]. Soon afterwards he married Charlotte Bush [4], and over the following years they had nine children. In 1893 when his daughter Minnie was born, they lived at 17 York Road in Canterbury [4]. In 1897, they were at Chilham, just west of Canterbury [3].

Some time between 1897 and 1901, Tom moved to Lydd to take up a job at the brewery of Edwin Finn in Lydd High Street [3], [5]. In March 1901, Tom was a patient in the Kent and Canterbury hospital [3]. In about 1920, he had what should have been a minor ear operation, which sadly went wrong and left him paralysed until his death in 1924 [5],[7].

.	The staff of Finn's Brewery, Lydd, in December 1907. Tom is wearing his cooper's straw hat and sitting immediately to the right of the bowler-hatted Mr. Finn. [6]	Tom still wearing his cooper's hat, about 1920.

Sources: Census [1]1871, [2]1881, [3]1901; [4]PRO records; [5]memory of family members; [6]"Old Romney Marsh in camera", by Edward Carpenter (Geerings of Ashford, 1984); [7]headstone in Lydd cemetery