Edmund Wright Brooks Explained

Edmund Wright Brooks (29 September 1834 – 22 June 1928) was an English Quaker philanthropist and cement maker.[1] He was active in the Anti-Slavery movement and also in famine relief in Russia and aid to Armenians. He was joint secretary and then chair of the Friends War Victims Relief Committee.

Family background

He was born 29 September 1834 at Melksham, in Wiltshire, of Quaker parents. He was the son of Edmund Brooks (1802–1893), baker, warehouseman, farmer and Ann Wright (1799?–1884), daughter of David Wright (1774?–1857) of Bury St Edmunds, baker, and Ann Wright (1778?–1827). He had two brothers. About 1850 the family moved to Esher, Surrey, where his father was a farmer.

Education

He was educated at the Sidcot School. He then entered the engineering works of John Fowler & Co., Leeds, and built up a solid position in the firm so that he was able to take a leading part in the engineering industry.

In 1860, he moved to Guildford in Surrey, where he practised as an engineer and in 1870, moved to Grays in Essex.

Business interests

In the cement business, he was a partner with his sons and sons-in-law in Hilton, Anderson Brooks, & Co earlier Brooks, Shoobridge and Co. with activities at Grays in Essex and Halling, Faversham and Upnor in Kent. At one time, his company employed the largest number of staff of any company in Essex. He was fully occupied with this business until the early 1890s, when he became more involved with Quaker and philanthropic work.

Quaker interests

He was treasurer the Anti-Slavery Society until his resignation in 1926. He was Secretary of the British Quaker Anti-Slavery Committee and was concerned among other things with the establishment in 1897 of a Mission in Pemba, one of the Zanzibar islands, now in Tanzania, to help freed and escaped slaves there. Slavery was finally legally abolished in Zanzibar in 1909.[2]

Because of his knowledge of Russian and his expertise, he was asked by the Meeting for Sufferings in November 1891 to go with Francis William Fox[3] to Russia and investigate the reported famine there. Brooks returned, reported on 15 January 1892 to the Meeting and left again with Herbert Sefton Jones, who was fluent in Russian, on 15 February with funds for a Quaker relief effort and an urgent need to distribute food before the spring thaw would make transportation difficult. The Friends concentrated their efforts on Samara but also went to Tatarstan and other adjacent regions. Some of the travel was by railway but much was by horse drawn sledge. Brooks returned home on 12 April. In the end, the Russian famine of 1891–92 killed between 375,000 and 500,000 people.[4] [5]

In 1895 he and Thomas William Marsh (1833–1902)[6] waited on the Czar to plead the cause of religious dissenters in Russia, and he was later active on behalf of the Dukhobors when permission was secured for them to emigrate. In 1899 he visited Leo Tolstoy with John Bellows.[7]

Between 1896 and 1899, he was clerk of the Friends Armenian Relief Committee, which raised £18,000.[8]

He was a Joint Secretary, with Ruth Fry of Friends War Victims Relief Committee 1914–24, He was later chairman of its executive committee, and if needed, giving almost daily help to the small and overworked office staff. His son, Alfred, also served on this committee.[9]

Public service and politics

He had always been preoccupied with education. At Guildford he had been secretary of the British School, and at Grays, he was a governor of Palmer's Endowed School and the first chairman of the Grays School Board. He also served on the Committee of Ackworth School, a Quaker school in Yorkshire.

He was involved in local government and philanthropic undertakings, and served as a JP for 30 years.

He stood for Parliament in the Essex, South East constituency, at the General Election of 1892 as a Gladstonian Liberal, against the sitting Conservative MP, Major F C Rasch.[10] [11]

He was a founder of Friends of Armenia which provided relief to Armenians, in 1897, and long term honorary treasurer.[12]

Marriage, family and death

On 29 June 1859, he married Lucy Ann Marsh (1835–1926), daughter of Richard Marsh (1795–1878) of Strood, draper, and Ann Marsh (born Morris, 1793–1891).

There were four sons and six daughters, including Herbert Edmund Brooks (1860–1931),[13] Alfred Brooks (1861–1952) and Howard Brooks (1868–1948), who succeeded him in the cement business. According to DQB and Digest Register in the Library of the Society of Friends,[14] the children were:

He died at his home, 'Duval', Grays, 22 June 1928.

Of the nine surviving children, one resigned Quaker membership in 1886 and three more in 1915. His daughter Mabel Winifred (b. 1872) remained a Friend and married, in 1897, Henry Jeffrey Simpson (1868–1938) an employee and later partner in the family cement manufacturing company.[15]

References

Sources

Notes

Notes and References

  1. [Milligan's Biographical dictionary of British Quakers in commerce and industry]
  2. https://books.google.com/books?id=JtHdYSV1OSMC&dq=%22Edmund+Wright+Brooks%22&pg=PP11 Britain and Slavery in East Africa By Moses D. E. Nwulia, on GoogleBooks, pp.194 ff.
  3. Francis William Fox (1841–1918) vide biography by J. E. G. De Montmorency ; with a prefatory note by G. P. Gooch. – Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1923.
  4. "The great Russian famine of 1891–2 : E.W. Brooks and Friends' famine relief " by Barry Dackombe. – In: Journal of the Friends Historical Society, Vol.58 ; no.3 (1999) p.277-299.
  5. Web site: The History of International Humanitarian Assistance . 2 November 2008 . 11 October 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191011143739/http://www.iupui.edu/~histwhs/h699.dir/HumanitChrono.htm . dead .
  6. Milligan Dictionary . . ., (p.301) says T.W. Marsh was an ironmonger, of Dorking in Surrey, with a strong interest in international affairs. He was probably a relation of EW Brooks' wife.
  7. John Bellows was a Bristol printer, lexicographer and amateur archaeologist, according to an ODNB article by Kate Charity, 'Bellows, John Thomas (1831–1902)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 3 July 2008. However, this article states that Bellows' companion on his visit to Tolstoy was an Australian Friend.
  8. Armenian Relief Committee: source – typescript notes on Central Committees at The Library of the Society of Friends.
  9. Friends War Victims Relief Committee 1914–24: Minute-books held at the Library of the Society of Friends, Friends House, London.
  10. The Times, Monday, 27 June 1892; p.4; Issue 33675; col D: Biographies of Candidates: Essex.
  11. The Times, Thursday, 7 July 1892; p.6; Issue 33684; col D: "The General Election. The Polls – Nominations"
  12. http://research.yale.edu:8084/missionperiodicals/viewdetail.jsp?id=880 Missionary Periodicals database at the University of Yale
  13. H.E.Brooks was chairman of Essex County Council in 1930 and 1931, until his death on 13 March 1931 – see The Times, Tuesday, 21 January 1930; pg. 10; Issue 45416; col B: "Letter to the editor- Advertisement By Hoarding Restriction By County Councils – letter from Herbert E. Brooks and The Times, Wednesday, Mar 18, 1931; pg. 9; Issue 45774; col E: "County Council Chairmen" and The Times, Friday, 27 November 1931; pg. 23; Issue 45991; col A: "Legal Notices".
  14. The Library of the Society of Friends, London holds a transcript of the Registers of Birth, Death and Marriage of English, Scottish and Welsh Quaker Monthly Meetings and a typescript Dictionary of Quaker Biography (DQB).
  15. Milligan Dictionary . . . p.400.

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