Catalogue description Letters from Mrs Mary Munn Brazier of Crowhurst Place and Rye to Miss Louisa Mercer and Joseph Mercer of Mountfield, esq

This record is held by East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office (ESBHRO)

Details of AMS 1557/1-12
Reference: AMS 1557/1-12
Title: Letters from Mrs Mary Munn Brazier of Crowhurst Place and Rye to Miss Louisa Mercer and Joseph Mercer of Mountfield, esq
Date: 1843-1845
Related material:

For the business archive of Henry Brazier and Thomas Legg and Son, 1824-1886 see AMS 6196. For papers relating to the sale of Brazier's estate in 1852, see WMD box 13.

Held by: East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office (ESBHRO), not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Immediate source of acquisition:

Records transferred on 21 Apr 1956 (ACC 182)

Administrative / biographical background:

Sarah, daughter Mrs Louisa Flint (née Mercer) of Sedlescombe deposited an envelope containing letters to her mother from Mrs Brazier at Hove Library (Hove Library accession 2232); the letters were amongst seven boxes of documents transferred to the East Sussex Record Office by the Library on 21 April 1956 (ACC 182) and listed as AMS 1229-2133.

 

Mary Munn, the daughter of Samuel and Sarah Furby, was baptised at Rye on 10 April 1808 (PAR 467/1/1/8). She married Henry Brazier at Rye on 20 October 1832 (PAR 467/1/3/1).

 

Henry (born 22 June), the son of William and Catherine Brazier, was baptised at Rye on 30 June 1802 (PAR 467/1/1/8); his father was an auctioneer, coal and corn merchant.

 

In a trade directory for 1828-1829, Messrs William Harrison and Henry Brazier are listed as woolstaplers and merchants at Landgate in Rye; by the early 1830s Henry Brazier appears as the sole trader.

 

Although the Braziers lived in Rye, from September to December 1844 they rented or stayed at Crowhurst Place, the property of Thomas Papillon and George Thursby.

 

Henry Brazier served as a JP for Rye from 1837 until his death, but refused to serve as Mayor of Rye when elected on 9 November 1842 (letter from E N Dawes, town clerk, dated 16 Nov 1842, see AMS 6196/1/18 number 117).

 

Brazier in his will, dated 3 February 1845, appointed Thomas Rowland Legg of Bermondsey in Surrey, woolstapler, and Jesse Piper of Hawkhurst in Kent, farmer, (who already had a financial interest in the firm) as his executors and as guardians to his infant son, Frederick. He was buried at Rye on 17 February 1845 and his will was proved in PCC by his executors on 17 March 1845 (see AMS 6326/3). Brazier's wife, who died intestate, was buried at Rye on 12 January 1846 (PAR 467/5/1); letters of administration were granted at Lewes on 1 April 1846 to her husband's executors during the minority of her son (W/B23.36).

 

The firm was apparently administered by them until absorbed by Thomas Legg and Son of 198-230 Bermondsey Street, Surrey in c1853, which ran the Rye firm as a branch. They continued to be listed in directories until 1887, but not in the edition for 1899, which suggests that the Rye branch was closed at about this time. Their warehouse appears to have been at the Old Monastery in Rye.

 

Joseph Mercer was the tenant of Church House and a house and land called Kemps otherwise Stomps, Mountfield, both part of the Mountfield Estate, then the property of Samuel Nicholl.

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