G.J.H. BROWN AND SON LTD., JEWELLERS

Accounts etc

Prior notice required for access

The records listed below were deposited on 9 and 18 September 1980, and 27 January 1981, by the Deputy Mayor of Chester, Councillor E.R. Lowe, Chester. Records less than thirty years old will not be produced for public inspection without the written consent of the depositor.

The firm of G.J.H. Brown and Son Ltd., originally known as Brown Brothers, was established in 1859. In Morris and Company's, Commercial Directory and Gazetteer of Cheshire, 1864, the business is described as 'Brown Brothers, watchmakers, gold and silversmiths, jewellers and opticians, 3 Bridge Street Row'. The address is given as 5 and 7 Bridge Street Row in Morris and Company's, Directory and Gazetteer of Cheshire with Stalybridge, 1874, and by 1878, the business had moved to its present premises at 2 Eastgate Row South (See Phillipson and Golder's Directory for Chester, 1878-79, p. 43).

George John Hemsley Brown, from whom the firm takes its present name, is listed in Morris's Directory, 1874, as a 'china, glass and earthenware dealer' of 63 Bridge Street Row, and in Phillipson and Golder's Directory, 1878-79, as a 'glass and china dealer'. However in Slater's, Post Office Directory of the City of Chester, 1882, he is listed as a 'watchmaker' of Brown Brothers, residing at 18 St. Martin in the Fields. By the 1890s, the firm appears in local Directories as G.J.H. Brown and Son.