Robert Hughes on Just a Few Things to Be Done Brittonwise: Is Anyone Out There?

I can't think of any more things to add to Robert Hughes's list here:

'Loose ends that I want to follow up, and where you would have thought the internet would help, include:

Newton Thomas, youngest known child of Samuel and Marie–Antoinette Thomas; b. 1883, and died presumably in New Zealand in his eighties or later, but when and where exactly?

Samuel Thomas, b. 1900, elder child of Frank and Gertrude Thomas (née Morris). Said to have married the daughter of a pig farmer, presumably in Canada. Were there any children?

Samuel Thomas, b. Billancourt, Paris, c. 1872: later known by the family as George, he married Ethel May Morris in 1906 and emigrated to Canada, said to have been Saskatoon. May, as she was known, made several visits to England, but George seems not to have done. They appear to have had no children, but is this correct? When and where did he die?

The Thomas Millions: a huge fortune is said to be tied up in Chancery because someone lost a birth certificate. Great-great-aunt Flossie had her chauffeur drive her around Wales looking at tombstones in the hope that she could unlock the Millions. Any truth in this family legend? (A five-pound Wrapit voucher for anyone who gives us the answer, and we'll add interest from today's date!)

Mary Quarterly, b. Devonport 1808: this family is heavily concentrated in the Devon and Exmoor area, but otherwise it is not a very common name. Does anyone have a Quarterly family tree which would give us a clue about Mary?

Thomas Nimmo, apothecary of Greenock: he was born at some time in the mid-Eighteenth Century, and is almost certainly the father of Elizabeth Nimmo, the [maternal] great-grandmother of Lionel Britton. Is there any way to access records about his medical training, and can he be the link to the Earls of Mar which the family later claimed to have?

Elizabeth Harding, wife to the above: where did this family come from? As no record can be found in Scotland or England for the marriage of Thomas and Elizabeth, there is a strong possibility that they were at some point in the colonies or in Ireland.

When and where did Elizabeth Smith die, and similarly her husband James Smith, for whom I can find no record?

A note about the Britton family tree was found written on the back of a picture by John Britton, in Nova Scotia, who tragically has been incapacited by a stroke for some years and cannot communicate.
This note refers to "Sherry Hales" 1665, and "Chusburne".

While "Chusburne" is totally cryptic, it is reasonable to suppose that 'Sherry Hales' was a corruption of Sheriffhales, a village near Shifnal in Staffordshire. Does the Britton family have an origin there?

John James Britton went to live at Vire in Normandy, shortly after Catherine his first wife died in 1879. He may have been there for less than two years, but we know that his younger son by Catherine was enrolled in a college there.

When he remarried in April 1882, one of the witnesses was Thomas Perkins, (1842–1907), who wrote numerous books about church architecture, especially that of Normandy. Did the acquaintanceship with Thomas arise from the sojourn in Normandy or predate it?

Thomas Perkins married John James's eldest daughter Ethel Alice in 1891, and the officiating minister was J. Townroe Coward, "Vicar of St Leonards", of whom I can find no trace on census or any other records. There is much mystery surrounding the Coward family, but it would be useful to discover more about them in order to shed light on how John James came to marry Maud May Coward, (c. 1857–1946), a girl young enough to be his daughter.

The remarkable John Britton, (1771–1857), was not only a notable writer about church architecture in Normandy and elsewhere, but also about a variety of other topics, including many works of topography (illustrated by himself), and commentary on the political and philosophical scene of the day.

John Britton of Nova Scotia thought it highly likely that the grandfather of John James was called John. Is it possible that this was John Britton the writer himself?'

Robert

Cecil Thomas (c.1905–?) and Lionel Britton

The indefatiguable Robert Hughes (great-nephew of Lionel Britton) has sent me census return details for a house in Winnipeg in 1911. Among others living there are Frank Thomas (born in in France in about 1876), his wife Gertrude (née Morris at Crabbs Cross near Birmingham), and their sons Samuel (11) and Cecil (4), both of whom were probably born in Redditch, again near Birmingham.

It is perhaps Cecil Thomas who is the most interesting to me because in 1964 Britton went into business with a Cecil Thomas (quite possibly the same person mentioned above) and an Adam Stanley Keith of 320 Tweedsmuir Road, Toronto, Canada; they were the three partners in the Park Group, designed to publish all of Britton's unpublished manuscripts. They had lofty visions of Lionel's name in prominent lights on Broadway, even of films being made of his plays.

They sank. Without trace?