John Howard Brown was one of those long-serving teachers who joined in 1913 and did not leave until 1946. He was well-admired by colleagues and pupils alike. Below, we have summarised his life, with more to be added when we publish Volume 2 of the school’s new history.
1886: Born in Dover, 22 April. Father Walter Howard Brown (1852-1933). JHB’s father was a photographer. Mother Edith Hayward. Walter and Edith married in 1885 and she was twelve years younger than her husband. Siblings: Margery Howard Brown (1888–1966) Norah Howard Brown (1893–1926). His grandfather had been a chemist, and photographer too.
1905: Studying for a science degree awarded by the University of London.
1911: Teaching science in Drayton Hales, Shropshire. (Seems natural if g-f was a chemist and father a photographer.)
1913: Joined LWGS1927: Published the short history of LWGS.
1927(?): Published a Short Guide to Thame Church. (May have been published later.)
1933: Published Elizabethan Schooldays: An Account of the English Grammar Schools in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century.
1935: Published A History of Thame as co-author with another schoolmaster, William Guest.
1935: Donated flint amulet to the Pitts Rivers Museum.
1939: Assistant Schoolmaster, Thame.
1946: At the age of sixty, JHB retired from school but then took a course in Theology at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.
1947: Ordained by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Cathedral.1947: His first parish was as curate at St Michael, Hawkinge and St Martin, Acrise near Folkestone.
1957: JHB, latterly Rector of Whitfield Kent, retired from the Ministry. He then lived at 17 Lennard Road, Folkestone.
1966: Death. Buried in Folkestone Cemetery 16 August. (His parents and siblings are buried in the same plot: Plot 14, grave 2310.) Probate £6310.
