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Life Story
On his birth certicate he is recorded as Eltham Bryan Brown but his name
is also recorded as Brian Brown. He was born on the 5th December 1893
in Christchurch. His father, Frederick John Brown, was a gardener. By
the time of the 1911 census his parents had moved to Cold Overton in
Leicestershire. Brian was now working as a ‘motor groom’ which would
now be referred to as a chauffeur). At the end of 1914 Brian married Ethel
Marriott at All Saints Church in Oakham. The couple lived at 11 New Street,
Oakham and had one son, Cecil H. Brown, who was born early in 1915.
At the time of his son’s baptism Brian’s occupation was recorded as ‘mail
driver’.
Brian enlisted for military service in February 1916 and after training,
embarked for France in August 1916. He was killed in action near Ypres on
the 26th October 1917 during the Third battle of Ypres, or Passchendaele
as it became more commonly known after the village around which the
most intense ghting took place.
He has no known grave but is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial in
Belgium where many of the missing from