Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

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longlocks
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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by longlocks » Wed Mar 13, 2013 6:19 pm

Article as published in the Ennis Chronicle 8 Jan 1813, puts William Brew in Church Street as early as 1813:
TO BE LET
From the First Day of May next,
For such Term as may be agreed on,
The Dwelling-house and Premises in
Bow-Lane, in the town of Ennis,
FORMERLY THE CUSTOM-HOUSE,
As now held by Boyle Vandeleur, Esq.
Also, the Dwelling-house, Cellar, and
Concerns in Mill-street as lately held by
Mr. ANTHONY ENGLAND, and now held
by the Widow Raleigh, to commence
from the 25th of March next.
And also, the upper part of the Dwelling
nouse in Church Street, as now held by
Mr. WILLIAM BREW, over the shop
and premises in the possession of THOMAS
CARRIGG, to commence from the 1st of
May next.

Proposals, in writing (Post Paid) to WILLIAM
BRAMPTON BURNE, Esq., No. 27 Grafton-street
Dublin.
Source: Ennis Chronicle 8 Jan 1813; Declan Barron <newparkhouse.ennis@eircom.net>;

pwaldron
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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by pwaldron » Thu Mar 14, 2013 11:47 am

Brilliant work, as usual, Kathy! I'd forgotten all the gems that are hidden away in that long-abandoned Brew website.

I don't see any reason why a woollen draper could not have become a postmaster.

Margaret's age is close enough to the Mountmellick death that I already considered the most likely match, so I will order a copy of that on my next trip to the GRO.

I'm not as puzzled by the William Brews as the Michael Brews, who were far more common!

longlocks
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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by longlocks » Thu Mar 14, 2013 3:03 pm

So funny, as I am just this moment scratching my head over the Michael Brews as well.

That info of yours about
According to Introduction to the Post Offices of County Clare, Ireland (1989),
by John Mackey and Tony Cassidy (p.24), William Brew had succeeded
Austin Clossey as postmaster only in 1843. He was succeeded by
Mrs Michael Brew (1846) and then Michael Brew (1847-1853).
makes absolutely no sense to me; I was thinking you were indicating that the Mrs. Michael Brew referenced here was William Brew's daughter Honora who married her 'cousin' Michael Brew and then the Mr. Michael Brew that took over in 1847 was her hubby; but since that marriage didn't occur until 20 Apr 1847, it can't have been her as she'd have been referenced as MISS Brew rather than Mrs. Michael Brew in 1846?

Actually I'm starting to have doubts that the Honora Brew (d/o William Brew) who married Michael Brew in 1847 is even a daughter of the post master / woolen draper, William Brew who died in 1846. After all, Honora really should have been on that 1821 census, if the birth order was Honora and then her sister Margaret as the information posted at http://brew.clients.ch/ThomClare.htm would lead you to believe.

pwaldron
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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by pwaldron » Thu Mar 14, 2013 7:13 pm

I've been in touch with Tony Cassidy and he seems happy (on the basis of another 24 years research!) that the names and dates in his 1989 publication are just a little garbled. His notes from P.O. records include a reference to a "transfer to Michael Brew to whom the postmistress has been married".

I have Michael Brew's two marriage certificates. The first (1847) confirms that his father-in-law was William Brew the postmaster. The second (1853) confirms that he was postmaster. Let me know if you want me to e-mail them to you.

My assumption was that Honora must have been staying with a grandparent or other relative on census night in 1821.

pwaldron
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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by pwaldron » Sun Mar 17, 2013 12:05 pm

The Brew family website has not been actively maintained for many years. Those who go to
http://brew.clients.ch/
and follow the link to
http://brew.clients.ch/FamHist.htm
may be tempted to give up on encountering a "HTTP Error 404".

The broken link should actually be to
http://brew.clients.ch/brew.htm
from where loads of Brew information can be found, including other 1821 census entries for Church Street in Ennis, transcribed by Philip Crossle, at
http://brew.clients.ch/DrumCen21.htm#Census
The fact that the transcriber's name itself is mistranscribed (as Gossle) suggests that it might be a good idea to confirm the information shown on the web page either on the microfilm or in Crossle's original notebooks.

This looks like the set of microfilms referred to:
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/234637
(which casts some doubt on the "LDS film no.149" reference on the Brew website). For details of how to get copies of material on LDS microfilms, see
https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/ ... n_Services

Crossle's original notes are presumably in The National Archives of Ireland, still known as the Public Record Office, Dublin when they were microfilmed in 1969.

Lots of other Crossle material shows up at
http://sources.nli.ie/Search/Results?lo ... ubmit=FIND

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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by pwaldron » Sun Mar 24, 2013 2:02 pm

Here is the closest match to the authoress from Irish death records:
DBrewMargaretWMountmellick1894qIv3p419.png
DBrewMargaretWMountmellick1894qIv3p419.png (49.52 KiB) Viewed 33028 times

pwaldron
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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by pwaldron » Sun Mar 24, 2013 3:53 pm

I suspect this article (The Derby Mercury (Derby, England), Wednesday, March 17, 1841; Issue 5671) refers to the authoress's brother, but would welcome confirmation:
DerbyMercury17Mar1841.jpg
DerbyMercury17Mar1841.jpg (24.44 KiB) Viewed 33026 times

pwaldron
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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by pwaldron » Tue Mar 26, 2013 2:44 am

This entry from the England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations) enabled me to decipher the place of death above and it also reveals what the authoress's middle initial stands for:
MargaretWilliaminaProbate.jpg
MargaretWilliaminaProbate.jpg (26.9 KiB) Viewed 33013 times
Further strong circumstantial evidence that this is the correct Margaret Brew is provided by this tombstone inscription from Glasnevin Cemetery at
http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ire/ ... evin08.txt
No.1072
In | your exceeding charity | deign to remember | BESSIE WHITE , E DE M (née
GIBBONS) | who died at | La Bergerie, Portarlington | 17th Sept. 1898, aged 40
years | wife of H. V. WHITE | Surveyor for Queen's County | "Blessed are the
clean of heart" | ANNE C. WHITE (née KELLY) | died 3rd June 1907 | FLORENCE M.
WHITE (née O'NEIL) | died 10th October 1924 | HENRY V. WHITE | died 15th
November 1934 | MARY J. WHITE | died 31st December 1935 | R.I.P.
The Irish Times of 28 Jul 1877 reported that Henry Vincent White C.E., co. surveyor, Longford, eldest son of John P White, 7 Sorrento terrace, m. Elizabeth Mary (Bessie), eldest dau. of late Charles Gerald Gibbons, Ballinspittle House, co. Cork.

We have seen above that the authoress's sister Anne lived and died at 5 Sorrento Terrace and was married to Barry Duncan Gibbons from Kinsale, probably Bessie's uncle.

I am tempted to guess that Bessie Gibbons married her uncle's neighbour and fellow engineer and that Margaret Brew died at the home of her brother-in-law's niece!

Better theories or further corroboration welcome!

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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by pwaldron » Fri Mar 29, 2013 3:58 pm

Another mention of the authoress's mother, from the Ennis Chronicle 20 Feb 1808, courtesy of Declan Barron:
... murder .... William Foley, late of Shepperton,
John Foley, heir at law, Timothy, Cornelius, Catherine Brew otherwise Foley,
Honora Foley - brothers and sisters of William.

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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by pwaldron » Tue Apr 02, 2013 10:48 am

I have started a new thread on Eliza Eagar (née Foley) (c1831-1917), who was probably a first cousin once removed of Margaret Williamina Brew - Eliza was a second cousin of Thomas Foley Brew jr. (1841-1907), who was almost certainly Margaret's nephew. The scarcity of heirs when Thomas Foley Brew died goes some way to explaining why his probable aunt has been forgotten - it is usually close family who work to preserve the memory of anyone who has been briefly in the public eye.

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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by pwaldron » Mon Apr 08, 2013 1:35 pm

Thanks to Ronnie Mathews of Portarlington for alerting me to a number of other references to Margaret Brew:

The first few are from:

Irish Novelists and the Victorian Age
James H. Murphy
Print publication date: 2011
Print ISBN-13: 9780199596997
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596997.001.0001

Chapter 1 at
http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.com/pdf/13/9 ... prelim.pdf
pp.17-18 says:
A rough tally of authors who were most frequently and seriously reviewed in the half dozen or so Victorian journals and magazines that were significantly in the business of carrying regular book reviews reveals that ... [in] the 1880s, [Justin] McCarthy was joined by George Moore, Richard Ashe King, and Richard Dowling. The women consisted of the ever-reliable [Charlotte] Riddell, together with two further Victorian stalwarts, Mrs Hungerford and Mrs Alexander, the independent May Laffan, Emily Lawless, and four of the more prominent women, land-war novelists Margaret Brew, E. Owens Blackburne, Letitia McClintock, and Mabel Robinson.
The Outline of Chapter 6 says:
In the 1870s and 1880s realism was achieved in the work of Margaret Brew and Annie Keary.
And the concluding Chapter 12 notes that:
landlord–tenant polarities that inhibited realism were overcome on a number of occasions: in the male equality of life of the military novel; in the isolated world of Grania; in Annie Keary's Castle Daly, which compresses socio-political divisions into one social class; and in parallel stories at landlord and tenant level, a strategy used by Anthony Trollope and Margaret Brew.
The following very brief biography appears in The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature
(by Robert Welch
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Print Publication Date:
2000
Print ISBN-13:
9780192800800
Published to Oxford Reference:
2003
Current Online Version:
2012
eISBN:
9780191727108)
Brew, Margaret
(?1850–?), novelist. Born in Co. Clare, probably the daughter of a landowner, she published The Burtons of Dunroe (1880) and Chronicles of Castle Cloyne (1886), both seeking social accommodation between the religions and classes.
It also lists one of her novels:
Burtons of Dunroe, The (1880), a novel by Margaret Brew dealing with religious differences in Co. Limerick before Catholic Emancipation, concerns a love-match between a Catholic peasant girl and the son of a Protestant landlord.
And it mentions her in another article:
Irish Monthly, The (1873–1954; 83 vols.), a religious journal edited by Fr. Matthew Russell. It serialized novels by Catholic authors such as Margaret Brew and M. E. Francis in the 1880s and 1890s. Before and during the literary revival it carried writings by Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, and others.
The ricorso.net article on The Irish Monthly notes
Margaret Brew, poems and stories contrib. by Brew to Irish Monthly [dated & named in Wolff]; includes ‘An Unknown Hero’, the true story of the eviction of a tenant as a reprisal for his support of O’Connell, Irish Monthly, Feb 1891.

The full reference to this story is:
An Unknown Hero
M. W. Brew
The Irish Monthly , Vol. 19, No. 212 (Feb., 1891), pp. 57-68
Published by: Irish Jesuit Province
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20498148

Her other articles in The Irish Monthly include:

The Soul's Offering
M. W. Brew
The Irish Monthly, Vol. 14, No. 162 (Dec., 1886), pp. 679-680

A Poor Traveller
M. W. Brew
The Irish Monthly, Vol. 15, No. 163 (Jan., 1887), pp. 42-56

The Soul's Choice
M. W. Brew
The Irish Monthly, Vol. 15, No. 167 (May, 1887), pp. 276-277

To-morrow at the Breaking of the Day
M. W. Brew
The Irish Monthly, Vol. 15, No. 174 (Dec., 1887), pp. 708-709

Before I Die
M. W. Brew
The Irish Monthly, Vol. 16, No. 181 (Jul., 1888), p. 401

The Memorial Tablet
M. W. Brew
The Irish Monthly, Vol. 17, No. 190 (Apr., 1889), pp. 185-187

She is also mentioned in a number of other articles in The Irish Monthly. A review in
The Irish Monthly , Vol. 14, No. 158 (Aug., 1886), pp. 455-456
Published by: Irish Jesuit Province
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20497448
says
Three-volume novels, which practically can be procured only from lending libraries (or circulating libraries, as they curiously prefer to call themselves), hardly come within the range of our critical jurisdiction. But an exception must be made in favour of "The Chronicles of Castle Cloyne," by M. W. Brew (London : Chapman and Hall). When a tale devoted to the delineation of Irish character and the description of Irish scenes is honoured with long eulogistic reviews in The Times, The Standard, The Morning Post, The Scotsman, and many other journals of the sort, we are by no means inclined to look upon it with favour, but rather to expect distorted views of Ireland, her past, her present, and her future, and notions of Irish social life as outrageously unreal as the pretended imitation of the Irish peculiarities of diction and pronunciation, which are facetiously styled "the brogue." Yet Miss Brew's "Chronicles of Castle Cloyne" has received these perilous commendations, and, nevertheless, is an excellent Irish tale, full of truth and sympathy, without any harsh caricaturing on the one hand, or any patronising sentimentality on the other. The heroine, Oonagh M'Dermott, the Dillons, Pat Flanagan, and Father Rafferty, are the principal personages, all excellent portraits in their way; and some of the minor characters are very happily drawn. The conversation of the humbler people is full of wit and common sense; and the changes of the story give room for pathos sometimes as a contrast to the humour which predominates. Miss Brew understands well the Irish heart and language: and altogether her "Pictures of Munster Life" (for this is the second title of the tale) is one of the most satisfactory additions to the store of Irish fiction from Castle Rackrent to Marcella Grace.
Another contributor in Pigeonhole Paragraphs
The Irish Monthly , Vol. 19, No. 218 (Aug., 1891), p.448
Published by: Irish Jesuit Province
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20498248
wrote:
One of the two or three pens combined in the paper "Wanted an Irish Novelist," in our July Number, ought to have supplied a grievous omission. There is no mention of M. W. Brew, author of that excellent Irish novel, "The Chronicles of Castle Cloyne, or Pictures of the Munster People," published by the London publishers, Chapman and Hall, for which even the unsympathetic Saxon critics had nothing but praise: The Athenaeum, for instance, saying that "one could hardly wish for a better Irish story, more touching, more amusing, more redolent of the soil"; and The Morning Post pronouncing it "as rich in 'backbone' as excellent in detail."
Ronnie Mathews has also alerted me to an (offline) article named `La Bergerie: A House and its Memories' by PJ Tynan in Laois Heritage Society Journal, No.1, 2003. This reveals that the house is in the townland of Ballymorris, which enabled me to find it on the OSI maps and (I hope) on Google Streetview. It appears to be in ruins today. Tynan's article notes that the occupants around 1900 were the Headen family, who appear in Ballymorris in the 1911 census. In the 1901 census, the Headens were in Dublin and it is not immediately clear from the House and Building Return for Ballymorris who was living in La Bergerie.

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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by pwaldron » Fri Apr 19, 2013 8:49 pm

There is another very brief summary of Margaret Brew's life in A Guide to Irish Fiction 1650 - 1900. It suggests that she
may be identified with a person of her name who owned a small estate at Lisduff, near Corrofin in 1876
but the estate owner is more likely to have been her sister-in-law and namesake, widow of her brother Thomas.

mgallery
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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by mgallery » Sun May 12, 2013 4:02 pm

I saw this Brew announcement Thomas Brew of Ballyket deceased thurs March 2nd 1826. I think this was a Dublin Evening Post announcement. You will get it in the dunboyne collection available in both Clare local studies and in the NLI ordered by year and date.

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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by mgallery » Tue Jun 18, 2013 4:29 pm

In the Dunboyne Collection I happened upon a review of Margaret Brew's short story "the Widows Daughter" published in the Sublon monthly magazine of May 1842. Also she had a poem published in the same issue "The Strangers Nook"
As far as I remember the review was glowing - but look it up for your own interest, I just noted in passing
This is in the Limerick Chronicle of 8th May 1842

Janet
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Re: Margaret Brew, 19th century Kilrush authoress

Post by Janet » Mon Mar 31, 2014 4:27 pm

Miss Brew was buried at Glasnevin cemetery in 1894, in the same grave as Honoria Foley and Elizabeth Cornelia Brew, and later, in 1900, Catherine Brew. The postings on this site enabled this additional research of the author, and it is to be hoped research continues. A selection of Miss Brew's short stories has been compiled under title 'Shell from the Shannon', together with research material, too voluminous to enter here. It is available at www.lulu.com.

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