The Story of Anna Elizabeth Bilbrough
Mrs Joseph Town
1842 - 1917

Orphaned twelve-year-old Anna, and her difficult brother Henry, were, in 1856, taken in by her uncle and aunt to their elegant Georgian house in Beech Grove Terrace, now within the curtailment of the University of Leeds.  Anna was sent away to school from where she wrote the first of many letters to ‘My very dear Aunt’. 

She was married, or was it married off, at nineteen to a man ten years older than she was.  He was a good and principled man, a devout Baptist and the managing director of Joseph Town and Sons, a family papermaking and merchandising company based in Leeds.  He provided for Anna well but left her a widow at forty-seven with eight surviving children. 

Anna lived in Leeds for twenty-seven more years as her children grew up, found employment or didn’t, married or didn’t, but between them provided her with eleven grandchildren.

She was married, or was it married off, at nineteen to a man ten years older than she was.  He was a good and principled man, a devout Baptist and the managing director of Joseph Town and Sons, a family papermaking and merchandising company based in Leeds.  He provided for Anna well but left her a widow at forty-seven with eight surviving children. 

COMING SOON...

The Bilbroughs
of
Beech Grove Terrace

The Bilbrough family lived in Beech Grove Terrace which is now part of the Leeds University campus.

Local, family and social history is brought to life in an account of the daily life of a middle class Victorian family in the second half of the nineteenth century, with first hand accounts of everyday activities and household management of this family of six plus two adopted cousins and their succession of live-in servants.

Coming soon...

The Bilbroughs of Beech Grove Terrace

The Bilbrough family lived in Beech Grove Terrace which is now part of the Leeds University campus.

Local, family and social history is brought to life in an account of the daily life of a middle class Victorian family in the second half of the nineteenth century, with first hand accounts of everyday activities and household management of this family of six plus two adopted cousins and their succession of live-in servants.