OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
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WHO WAS WHO IN OLD PLYMOUTH

JOSEPH PEARCE BROWN (1850-1936)

Mr Eldred Roberts Brown (1809-1885) had two brothers, Mr William Roberts Brown and Mr Thomas Brown.

Mr William Roberts Brown married Miss Eliza Pearce in 1841.  William became a Wesleyan Minister and moved to Lancashire.  Mr Joseph Pearce Brown was born at Rochdale in 1850: the assertion in his Obituary notices that he was born in Cornwall is not correct.  His brother, John, was born in Darlington, in County Durham, in 1853.

After gaining early experience in the grocery trade in London and Scotland and marrying Miss Catherine Jane Arrowsmith in Clifton, Bristol, in 1877, Mr Joseph Pearce Brown arrived in Plymouth in 1879 to join the family business, Messrs Brown, Wills and Nicholson, wholesale provision merchants.  Mr Thomas Nicholson (1803-1891) retired fro active involvement in the business in 1881 and died a decade later.  Mr Eldred Roberts Brown (1809-1885) died on February 4th 1885 after five years of suffering.  Mr Joseph Pearce Brown and his brother Mr John Brown took over the management of the business.

In 1896, following Plymouth's boundary extension to take in Compton Gifford, Mr Brown became one of the Ward's representatives on the Town Council. 

The 1901 census shows that 23-years-old Mr Kenneth Arrowsmith Brown was assisting in the running of his father's business while 21-years-old Harold A Brown was at Cambridge University.

A decade later Mr Kenneth Arrowsmith Brown was in charge and lived at Linkins Lodge, Yelverton.

He was elected Mayor of Plymouth in 1917/18 and again in 1918/19, during which he presented the Freedom of the Borough to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and to the American Ambassador, Doctor Page.  He also welcomed to Plymouth the first American airmen to fly across the Atlantic.

In 1921 the business moved to the old Bedford Brewery premises in Alexandra Road, Mutley, which became the Beechwood Factory.

On Thursday September 1st 1927 a reporter from "The Western Morning News" was given a tour of the Beechwood factory.  Within its walls were produced Devonshire bacons and hams as well as fresh and preserved 'table dainties' in tins and glass jars.  In a separate building was the refrigeration machinery, consisting of a large ammonia plant driven by a 30hp engine.  There was a smaller plant worked separately.  A steam bakery had recently been installed.

Upon first entering the premises, a carcase is placed in a large chill-room, where the animal heat is taken out of it.  The carcases could be moved from one part to another by means of overhead tracking, which included some complicated point work, and then into a double-insulated area where the walls were filled with cork, silicate of cotton and other non-conducting materials.

In the curing rooms, where the temperature was kept at between 45 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit by means of brine circulating through drums, the carcases received treatment over a period extending to four or five weeks before being taken to another building where they were washed, dried and smoked.  That process was done in specially built houses where oak and other hardwood dust was burned and lasted for some 48 hours.

Although bacon was imported in great quantities from America and Europe, a large trade was done in Devonshire bacon, with two or three tons of it being despatched weekly to Scotland.  Further quantities were sent to London and as far away as India and Singapore.  The famous "Beechwood" sausages were made in a separate plant where nine machines divided into three units, could turn out several tons of them each week.  Large quantities were regularly supplied to the Royal Navy.

On the second floor was the preserving rooms, where cooked meats were sterilized and sealed in tins and jars.  Above that floor was a machine for washing the glass jars and getting them thoroughly clean before despatching them to the kitchen below to be filled.  The cooking was all done by steam, in large iron or steel pans and tanks.  All the staff engaged in food preparation had to wear white coats or aprons and the women also had white caps.  These were issued three times per week, or more frequently if required.  

Mr Brown was particularly interested in social reform and housing argued that the war on slum housing could not be won by private enterprise or out of the rates: it was the responsibility of national government.  Like his uncle, he served on the Plymouth School Board, partly as vice-chairman, and also served as chairman of both the Port of Plymouth Chamber of Commerce and the Plymouth Mercantile Association, during which time he encouraged the purchase by the Town of Beaumont Park for the benefit of the residents.  He was also the first chairman of the Town's Insurance Committee and he spent many anxious strenuous days trying to bridge the gulf between the doctors and the committee at a time when it  looked like Plymouth was going to be among those places that would not have a medical panel.

Mr Joseph Pearce Brown CBE JP, senior partner of the business, died at his home, "Chievely", in Seymour Road, Plymouth, on Tuesday July 14th 1936, at the age of 87 years.   During his life he had helped to found the Civic Guild of Help and had been a churchwarden of Saint John the Evangelist, Sutton-on-Plym.

He was buried at Efford Cemetery on Friday July 17th 1936, the arrangements having been carried out by Messrs Popham's Limited.

He was survived by his widow, Mrs Catherine Jane Brown, and their sons, Kenneth Arrowsmith Brown, Harold Arrowsmith Brown, Ralph Robert Brown, James Arrowsmith Brown, Charles Pearce Brown (1885-1965), and two daughters, Dorothy Brown and Muriel Brown.