Box People and Places
Latest Issue 31 Spring 2021 
  • This Issue
    • Celebrity Visits
    • Middlehill Tunnel
    • Doris Pepita Chappell
    • Local Roman Finds
    • Gingell
    • Jut the Ticket
    • Straightening & Levelling
    • Tottle Family
    • Rudloe Part 2
    • Bowdler
    • Bullocks Worldwide
    • James Shell of KIngsdown
    • Bill Peter Recalled
    • Rudloe WW2 Remnants
    • More Stink Pipes
    • Northey Tankard Found
  • Early Medieval
    • Britain in Late Antiquity
    • Box after AD 350
    • Why Speak English?
    • Art and Craft
  • Previous
    • Issue 30 - Georgian Rudloe
    • Issue 29 - Darkest Hour
    • Issue 28 - VE Day
    • Issue 27 - Northey
    • Issue 26 - Heritage Trail
    • Earlier Issues 1 - 25 >
      • Issue 25 - Slave Owners
      • Issue 24 - Highwaymen
      • Issue 23 - Georgian
      • Issue 22 - War Memorial
      • Issue 21 - Childhood 1949-59
      • Issue 20 - Box Home Guard
      • Issue 19 - Outbreak WW2
      • Issue 18 - Building Bargates
      • Issue 17 - Railway Changes
      • Issue 16 - Quarries
      • Issue 15 - Rail & Quarry
      • Issue 14 - Civil War
      • Issue 13: Box Revels
      • Issue 12 - Where You Live
      • Issue 11 - Tudor & Stuart
      • Issue 10 - End of Era 1912
      • Issue 9 - Health & Leisure
      • Issue 8 - Farming & Rural
      • Issue 7 - Manufacturing
      • Issue 6 - Celebrations
      • Issue 5 - Victorian Centre
      • Issue 4 - Slump after WW1
      • Issue 3 - Great War 1914-18
      • Issue 2 - 1950s & 1960s
      • Issue 1 - 1920s
    • Index By Author
    • Partner Sites & Book Reviews
    • Currency Converter
  • People
  • Places
  • General
  • Series
    • Northeys >
      • Early Family
      • World of the Northeys
      • Unpaid Bill: Smith & Northey
      • Family Tree
      • George Wilbraham
      • Life in Box
      • George Edward
      • Safe & Steady Son
      • Army Life
      • Theatrical Events
      • Rolls-Royce Pioneer
      • Northey Donkey Cart
      • Other Children
      • Later Family
      • Selling Up
      • Northey Legacy
    • Box School Series >
      • Box Charity School
      • Formation of Box Schools
      • Schools WW1 to WW2
      • Box Schools, 1920s
      • Boys' School, 1927
      • Evacuee Schoolboy 1941
      • Box School 1945-83
      • Class of 1954
    • Box Farms >
      • Weavern Farm and Mill
      • Old Jockey Farm
      • Hill House Farm
      • Coles Farm
    • Box Library Project
    • NATS Trails >
      • Heritage Trails 2019
      • Conservation Areas
      • Box NATS Trails 2018
      • Alcombe and Shockerwick
      • Mills on Box Brook
      • Saxon Footpaths
      • New History Trails 2017
      • Roman Road
      • Box Hill Trail
      • Georgian Middlehill
      • History Trails 2016
      • Mad House
      • Thomas Railway
      • Market Place Origins
    • Prehistory >
      • Kingsdown's Menhir Secrets
    • Roman >
      • Early History Hoard
      • Roman Road Finds
      • Ancient Discovery
      • Roman Mosaics in Box
    • Early Medieval
    • Feudal >
      • Magna Carta in Box
      • Monk's Tale
      • Norman Conquest of Box
      • Tracing Bartholomew Bigod
      • When it Rained and Rained
    • Late Medieval
    • Tudor & Stuart >
      • Box in Civil War 1642 - 51
      • Wolf Hall and Box
      • Marsh Family
      • People during Civil War
      • Original Box Revels
      • Tudor Local Government
      • Ordinary People
      • Religion in Box, 1475-1660
      • Where You Live in 1626 >
        • Ashley
        • Central Box
        • Ditteridge
        • Hatt, Old Jockey and Blue Vein
        • Hazelbury
        • Henley and Washwells
        • Kingsdown
        • Middlehill
        • Rudloe
      • Hugh Speke Shaped Box
      • Walter Bushnell
      • Reformation in Box, 1535
      • Ten Tudor & Stuart Mansions
      • Death at Thomas à Becket >
        • For Whom Box Bell Tolled
      • Tudor & Stuart Timeline
      • John Aubrey's Box
    • Georgian >
      • Napoleon versus Box
      • Revolutionary Times
      • Coaches in 1830
      • Agricultral Census 1803
      • Tithe Apportionment
      • Slavery Families
      • Mullins Family, Schoolmasters
      • Box Churchyard
      • Sheridan's Duel
      • Tree of Life at Middlehill
      • Box's Highwayman
      • 1752: Very Odd Year
      • Witches, Quakers and Chapels
      • The New Road, 1761
      • Vulgarity in Box
      • Rebuilding the Village
      • Speke Family
      • Georgian People
      • Georgian Timeline
    • Rail & Quarry >
      • Crane 57
      • Railway Men Remembered
      • Old Clay Pipe
      • Recalling Box Quarries >
        • Oily Series
      • Quarrymen and their Families
      • Built in Stoneyards
      • Quarries in 2000
      • Single Ticket
      • Trainspotting in Box
      • Light Through Box Tunnel >
        • More Light on Tunnel
        • Brunel Myth
        • Sunrise at Box Tunnel
      • Marl at Middlehill
      • James Moodey
      • Railway Staff in Box
      • Impact of Railways
      • Vivash Follow-up
      • Underground Quarries
      • Lambert's Stoneyard
      • Cranes at Work
      • Railway Policeman
      • Terror in Tunnels
      • Vivash Family
      • Railway Buildings and More
      • Why Railways Came to Box
      • Box in 1830
      • Building Box Tunnel
      • Boxing and Quarrymen >
        • More Jem Mace
      • Clift Quarry Steam Loco
      • Timeline 1830 - 1870
      • Trial Shaft
      • Underbridges
    • Late Victorian >
      • Edwardian Love Story
      • Northey Estate Sale 1912-1923
      • Box Fete & Friendly Societies
      • Methodism in Box
      • George Reeves, Quarryman Ganger
      • Dipsomania in Box
      • 1870 Start of Era
      • Victorian Farming
      • Ashley Leigh
      • Steam Mill and Cottages
      • Class Division
      • Grove Inn
      • Box House
      • Celebrations >
        • Jubilee Mug 1887
      • Parish Magazine History
      • Postcards of Box >
        • Postcard Solved
      • Skeate, Speck and Ponting
      • 1899 A Year of Festivities
      • Valens Terrace
      • Village Outings >
        • Excitement for Outings
        • Cycling Craze
      • Timeline 1840 to now
      • Local Pubs
    • Great War >
      • Photos 2014
      • Cecil Lambert's War
      • VAD Working Parties
      • After the War
      • Box School Research
      • School WW1 Projects
      • List of Servicemen
      • Embroideries
      • In Memoriam
      • Never Forgotten
      • Where They Lived
      • Christmas 1913 and 1914
      • Children in WW1
      • Neighbour Against Neighbour
      • Home & Far Away
      • Finding Private Hall
      • Box Before the War
    • Inter War Years >
      • Shops in 1920s
      • Fascism
      • Sports Day 1931
    • WW2 Index >
      • Land Girl Remembers
      • World War 2 Scrapbook
      • Box in 1943
      • Aircraft Factories
      • D Day Implications, 1944
      • Peace
      • VE Day 1945
      • After the War
      • Epitaph to WW2
      • Wartime Memories
      • Wartime People
      • Bath Blitz 1942
      • Invasion Threat 1942
      • Children in War
      • Air Raids on Box
      • Military Camps
      • Royal Visits
      • Your WW2 Tributes
      • Dunkirk Evacuation
      • Box Home Guard >
        • Home Guard Names
      • Life at Home
      • Evacuee Children
      • Village & Ammunitions Depot
      • Memories of WW2
      • In Service at Home
      • At War
      • Lead up to War
      • Servicemen & Women
      • Timeline 1939-45
      • VE Day Remembered
      • Dennis Moss >
        • Hazelbury Air Crash
        • Air Crash Wreath
        • Flight Crew Lost
        • Graham Brayshaw
      • Evacuated From Belgium
      • WW2 Resting Place
      • Sherman Tank Disaster
    • Modern >
      • Modern Art
      • Centre of Commerce
      • Shoe Sculpture >
        • Stiletto Sculpture
      • Characters in 1940s
      • Teenage Rebels, 1960s
      • Swingin Sixties or Not?
      • A Box Childhood
      • Box People from 1950s
      • Shops in 1950 Box
      • Box in 1950s
      • Village in 1950s
      • Summer of 1959
      • reCollections
      • Residents After the War
      • Coach Trips 1950s
      • Never Had It So Good !
  • Contact
    • Blog
    • Q&A
John Brooke, 1873 - 1963:
Box Public Servant


​Alan Payne
March 2019
 
Some people are born to be administrators, they are good at the role and enjoy it. But it takes a rare person to give as much to his community as John Brooke of 2 Mead Villas, Box, one of the best -known and most highly respected men in the public life of Wiltshire.[1]

Right: John and Virginia Brooke (The Wiltshire Times, 20 May 1944
Picture
​Born in 1873 as the son of a self-employed master carpenter from Old Sodbury, John married Virginia Aish, also of Old Sodbury. They were committed Baptists, attending the Manvers Street Baptist Church, Bath, and later the Methodist Church in Box. During the Great War John frequently preached in the local area. Not to be outdone, Virginia Brooke was a member of the District Nursing Association. In 1944 they celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary.

Postmaster at Kingsdown
Locally, John was well-known because he was the sub-postmaster and owner of the general stores at Kingsdown from 1900 to 1927. He added a bakery and became a corn factor selling seed to local farmers. In 1908 the post office suffered a break-in by two London youths whilst John and his family were out one Sunday afternoon. They stole £13 in money, stamps and postal orders.[2] The local community gathered to support him. George Ford, Kingsdown quarryman, saw the robbers enter the premises, and Herbert John Hale, GWR clerk, remembered selling them rail tickets out of Box which they paid for in coppers (½p to 5p pieces, stolen from the Post Office till).
Picture
Kingsdown Post Office seen left (courtesy Eric Callaway)
This wasn't the only theft that John suffered. In 1922 the solicitor acting for his mother's estate misappropriated £202.17s.9d (worth over £9,000 in today's money) plus two cottages in Old Sodbury.[3] The case was taken over by the Director of Public Prosecutions from the criminal trial. John gave evidence citing his address as 1 The Firs, Kingsdown, and the case was referred to the Court of Assize. There are no details of the outcome.
 
Generosity to Others
Always known for his administrative ability, during the depression years of the early 1930s John volunteered to organise the Schools annual sports and made a donation for prizes.[4] Typical of the man, he offered when no-one else came forward.
 
As well as public service, John was gracious and generous in his dealings with others. Writing from 2 Mead Villas, at the depths of the unemployment in Box in 1932, he lent his support to the Bath Gas Company who were installing the mains gas pipe from the centre of the village to Chippenham.[5] Instead of using mechanical excavators, the company agreed to revert entirely to hand labour, despite the additional cost incurred. As far as is possible unemployed men from the places through which the main is being laid are being engaged on the work, most of it unskilled labour. John praised their public-spirited action ... providing employment for sixty extra men for three months ... Honour to whom honour is due; hats off the Bath Gas Company.
 
In 1939 John and Virginia were supporting Emma G Fry, a 74-year-old widow who was incapacitated who shared their house at 2 Mead Villas. It wasn’t his only contribution to the war effort. As an experienced administrator, he lent his efforts to establishing a dump for scrap metal (iron, steel, brass, and copper) at the main entrance of the Recreation Field. He requested articles of aluminium urgently needed for aircraft production should be deposited at his house.[6]
 
Parish Councillor
For many years John was chairman of Chippenham and Calne Rural District Council, twenty-five years on Box Parish Council and chairman from 1937 to 1944, following on from Dr JP Martin. His commitment was such that he missed only two meetings of the District Council and was appointed to the National Rural District Councils' Executive. He also served as a magistrate, on the Joint Isolation Hospital Board (trying to restrict the spread of tuberculosis), on the Appeal Board for National Service (this was, after all, written during wartime in 1944), and a manager of the new Box Highlands School.
 
John was a long-serving member of the council and its chairman from 1937 to 1944, virtually the whole period of the Second World War. He resigned in November 1944 ostensibly because of Virginia's ill-health but we might imagine that he was worn out by village issues throughout the war period.[9] In August 1940 there was the issue of the Air Raid Siren which sounded in the centre of the village whenever busloads of workmen were travelling from Bath and Bristol to the underground quarry works. The village was split between disruption and safety and 600 people who attended a meeting were not slow in in indicating their feeling.[10] Eventually it was sorted. In 1943 the dispute over the alteration of footpaths at Hazelbury Manor, requested by Mr GJ Kidston the donor of Mead Fields (the Rec), had put him in an unviable position and John took the decision to bring his public service to an end a year later.

Recognising his Work
Despite his high-profile work, John's reputation has diminished, partly because of the modesty of the man himself. In 1935 he was awarded the George V Jubilee medal for his public service.[7] It was amongst the local community that he was mostly known. Because of his eminence, he was a frequent representative at the funerals of local notables from Kingsdown and Box, including Mr Edwin Bow, the eminent Box Methodist, himself a preacher for over 50 years.[8]

He and Virginia had seven children. Their son, Arthur, was well-known in the village because he was a leading figure in Box's Toc H society, before his wartime service in the Merchant Navy, providing Christian assistance to the disadvantaged, often ex-servicemen. Young men sometimes recalled Arthur as the teller of ghost stories to Box Scouts on camp.[11]
John Brooke died in 1963 and was buried in Box Cemetery on 3 March. In his own words of 1932: Honour to whom honour is due.

We apologise for the poor quality of the headline photo of John and Virginia Brooke. Does anyone have a better quality photo of John or his family please? 
​Family Tree
Parents Paul Philip Brooke (b 1829) and Susannah Neale Stinchcombe (1838 - 1919). Children:
Henry (b 1862)
Emma (b 1866)
Albert William (1868 - 1912), baker from Bathford;
Francis Thomas (b 1871)
Arthur Paul (b 1876)
Reginald Gerald, who managed a drapery store in Lambeth, London, and was chairman of his local Liberal party;
John (24 May 1873 - 1963);
Walter, pastor in Croydon, Surrey;
Percy Gerald (b 1872).
 
John Brooke (25 May 1873 - 1963) married Virginia Aish (b 10 November 1871) on 14 May 1894. Children:
Arthur Philip John (1895 - 1969), radio officer Merchant Navy, married Gertrude Lydia Butt in 1947
Douglas R (b 1900)
Cecil Francis (b 1904), who worked for ICI, Birmingham
Gerald W (b 1906)
Eric Henry
Winifred (b 1902), who married Mr H Jones, a teacher
Grace Mary, who married Mr Henry C Flashman of Gillingham, Dorset, in September 1935
​References
[1] The Wiltshire Times, 20 May 1944
[2] The Bath Chronicle, 21 May 1908
[3] The Western Daily Press, 22 July 1922
[4] Parish Magazine, August 1930
[5] Bath Chronicle and Herald, 10 December 1932
[6] Parish Magazine, August 1940
[7] Bath Weekly Chronicle and Herald, 22 June 1935
[8] Bath Weekly Chronicle and Herald, 22 February 1941
[9] The Wiltshire Times, 11 November 1944
[10] Parish Magazine, August 1940
​[11] Courtesy Jim Browning and Ann Pothecary