The Brocks of Cambridge

Alice Emma Brock was born at 139 Leighton Road, Kentish Town, North London, on 1 January 1886.[57] She was both the eldest of the Brock children and the shortest lived of them, dying at twenty-eight. She has left very few traces. She died in Great Yarmouth,[note 15] Norfolk on 24 July 1896. She died from peritonitis exhaustion at East View,[note 16] Cliff Hill, Gorleston, Great Yarmouth. Her brother Thomas was with her when she died.[59]

Charles Edmund Brock RI was the eldest, and the most successful, of the Brock brothers. He was born at the family home at Hampden Road, Holloway, London, England on Saturday 5 February 1870. Like his brothers, Charles was educated first at St Barnabas junior and infant school, before moving to the Boys' Higher Grade School which all of this brothers attended in their turn. C. J. Smith, the third headmaster of the Higher Grade School noted that the Brocks were the most famous of its pupils, and that early drawings and paintings by Charles were among his most prized possessions.[17] Charles did not feature in prize days at the school as much as his younger brothers did, but where he did shine was at the Cambridge School of Art. Here he won prizes for painting, chalk drawing, painting and drawing from life etc.[60]

Charles had at least some art training from the talented Cambridge sculptor Henry Wiles (1838 – 11 August 1930)[61] who was a near neighbour of the Brocks when they lived in North Terrace. There is no evidence of Charles doing any sculpture, and he did do portraits of Henry Wiles and his father, the stone-mason John Wiles (1812 – 1908).[62]

Charles also attended the Cambridge School of Art, as did his three brothers, and at least one sister (Katharine). On 25 September 1902, Charles married Annie Dudley Smith (13 September 1879 – 15 December 1959)[12]^: 45 [63] at the St. Andrew's Street Baptist Chapel. On returning from their honeymoon, the couple lived at Cranford at 38 Grange Road, Cambridge,[56] where he was to remain until his death. The couple had no children.

Kirkpatrick lists nearly 270 books or sets of books (such as the 30 volume Thackeray) that were illustrated by Brock. This was only part of his output. He also illustrated magazines, and painted portraits, mostly of leading Cambridge academics.

Charles served as the executor for his father's small estate of £142, after the latter's death on 3 April 1921.[3] Charles, who had been in poor health for some time, died on 38 February 1938, in Cranford, the house he had lived in since his marriage. His estate was valued at £2,458.[64] His widow moved into 15 Hughes Place, Cambridge with her sister-in-law Bertha and her brother-in-law Thomas.[12]^: 46 Thomas died at the end of 1939, survived by three of his siblings, Richard, Henry, and Katharine. Charles's widow, Annie Dudley, survived him by twenty-one years, dying on 15 December 1959.[63]

The following medical-themed Punch illustrations are by courtesy of the Wellcome Collection. Charles had 109 illustrations published in Punch between 6 February 1901 and 30 March 1910.

Richard Henry "Dick" Brock was born on Friday, 21 July 1871,[65] at Colney Hatch, in London. His family moved to Cambridge shortly after his birth. Like his brothers he attended St Barnabus, and then the Higher Grade Boys' School. At the Higher Grade Boys' School, he was a science scholar for 1889–1890.[note 17] He also attended the Cambridge School of Art where he won a whole range of national prizes. By 1891, the census shows that Richard was not only a student but also a teacher (a pupil-teacher) at the Cambridge Art School. He continued in this role until 1895, when the Committee of the School of Art noted that they had lost his services.[26]

Richard did some illustration for The Infant's Magazine and The Family Friend in 1897, but Kirkpatrick states that he then concentrated on painting for the next 20 years.[12]^: 73 Holland states that Richard concentrated on painting, earning a modest income from local landscapes, mostly in oils. He only exhibited Kelly says that Richard undoubtedly preferred to paint cows and horses in meadows by the Cam to any other subject.[1]^: 30 However, Kelly states the from 1908 onwards, the Wells Gardner, Darton & Co.'s Prize Annual always carried his drawings in black and white, often up to the 30 drawings, and that he also contributed illustrations to same company's Chatterbox Annual.[1]^: 156

Richard was an accomplished musician, playing not only the violin and cello,[12]^: 74 but also the double base.[1]^: 22 Richard was not just a casual player, but played with the Cambridge Orchestral Society, and was elected a member of the Society's committee in 1903.[66]

Richard was a relatively frequent exhibitor.[note 18] In 1916 Richard began contribution to Tatler and Punch, and he had four illustrations published in Punch from 22 March 1916 – 11 April 1917. About this time also he began to contribute sporadically to various periodicals including:[12]^: 74

• Chums
• Printer's Pie
• Outward Bound
• The Boy's Own Paper
• The Boys' Magazine
• Chatterbox
• The Wide World Magazine
• The Happy Mag.
• The Detective Magazine
• The Red Magazine
• The Scout
• The Golden Mag.

Richard married Mary Cooke (27 November 1882 – ), a schoolmistress, at the Independent Chapel, Hanworth Road, Hounslow, London on 25 August 1917.[12]^: 74 The couple appear never to have had any children. In 1918, Richard appears to have applied for an exemption from National Service, as he later withdrew this on the grounds that he was engaged in War Work as a volunteer. While Richard at 45 was too old for conscription when it was first introduced in 1916,[note 19] this changed in 1918. The Military Service (no. 2) Act of 1918 extended the age limits to 18 to 51, bringing Richard, at 47, into the net.[68]

While Kirkpatrick states that Richard and Mary remained in the family home, Arundine House, until 1938, the electoral registers show that they moved into the house next door, Field Cottage in 1925 and was still there in 1935. Richard worked in the studio with his three brothers. Richard began to illustrate children's books in earnest in 1920, starting with Three Girls on a Ranch by Bessie Marchant,[12]^: 74 and went on to illustrate at least 80 books in total.[12]^: 75 Many of these were girl's stories,[12]^: 74 but he also illustrated many annuals.[12]^: 75[1]^: 156

Kirkpatrick states that Richard seems to have stopped illustrating periodicals in 1932, and books in c. 1940. By 1939 Richard and Mary were running a boarding house in Hastings, and subsequently moved to Hounslow in London in 1940.[note 20] Richard dies at 32 Bulstrode Road of heart disease on 11 June 1943.[12]^: 75

Holland states that Richard's illustrations lacked the skill and vigour of his brother Harry's illustrations.[71] Kelly states that his drawings were not up to the standards of those of Charles or Henry.[1]^: 156

Richard only published four sketches (as the illustrations with a punchline were called) in Punch, three in 1916 and one in 1917. All of them refer to the war in one way or other. The 1917 sketch is an example of the way in which Punch illustrators depicted the Land Girls. Kelly says that the drawings show the Richard was clearly happier drawing animals rather than people.[1]^: 143

A rare children's book illustration by T. A. Brock[72]

Thomas Alfred was born on Sunday, 15 December 1872,[73] the fourth child of his parents and the first to be born since their move to Cambridge. Like his brothers he was educated at the Higher Grade School in Cambridge, where he was a star pupil. While he was in Form 1b he was top of the prize list for that form. He also took the Mapping Prize and the Leeke Prize for his year.[note 21]

Two years later Thomas took the prize for attendance another for exceeding the standard in Class 1a.[75]

The following year his mathematical bent was on show when he achieved a First Class in stage 3 mathematics.[16] Thomas gained the reputation of being the best mathematician that the Higher Grade School ever had.[76]

Thomas won a sizarship, i.e. at least a partial scholarship to study mathematics at St. John's College in Cambridge, being admitted there on 13 October 1892. He graduated with an honours B. A. degree in mathematics in 1895, being 25th Wrangler. He was awarded an M. A. degree in 1899.[77] He was the only one of his siblings to attend university.

Some sources refer to Richard as the forgotten Brock brother of three Brock brothers, being far less know than Charles or Henry. When Thomas is mentioned at all, it is usually to say that he became a mathematician.[71] However, Newbolt states that there were four Brock brothers working as illustrators of which Charles and Henry were the best known.[78]^: 619-20

Throughout his life Thomas described himself as an artist and draftsman:

• In the 1901 census, he described himself as a Draughtsman of Geological Plates.
• In the 1911 census, he gave his profession as: Artist (Palaeontographical Draughtsman). By now he was living at Arundine House where he shared a studio with his three brothers. His illustrations of fossils were appearing regularly in the Monograph of the Palaeontographical Society.
• in the 1939 Register, he gave his profession as Artist: Illustrator of Scientific Books.

While his brothers worked at easels, Thomas's workstation was at a microscope, as he used to draw illustrations of microscope slides and microscopic creatures and structures for text-books and journals.[1]^: 23

In 1904 Thomas won £40 as second prize in the Daily Chronicle cartoon Competition. Despite this win, Thomas did not join Charles, Henry, or Richard in drawing for Punch but he was the principal source of the jokes that his brothers drew for Punch.

Thomas played a full part in social life in Cambridge. He was a key member of the YMCA's Literary and Debating society.[79][80][81][82][83] He also played Ping Pong,[84][85] and was an officer for the Chess and Draughts club.[86] He was a member of the local authority sub-committee that managed the School of Arts and Crafts.[87]

While all of the Brocks seem to have been involved in the Baptist Chapel at St Andrew's street, Thomas and Katharine seem to have been the most involved. Thomas was also a member of the Robert Hall Society,[88] a Baptist student society established by the celebrated classical scholar T. R. Glover and named for the Baptist Robert Hall who had ministered in Cambridge. The society met at the St Andrew's Street Chapel, and was doing so even 60 years later.[89] The society was the first of many Baptist student societies that eventually coalesced into the Baptist Students' Federation.[90]

The eldest of the Brock children, Alice Emma, died on 24 July 1896. Thomas was present at her death in Great Yarmouth.[59] Thomas had gained his B. A. the previous year and was presumably working on his M. A. He was living at home at 14 Brunswick Walk. He left home at 3:30 on 21 December for a short walk, but did not return. His family advertised for any information about him four days later.[91] It is not clear what happened and when he returned.

Thomas never married. Sometime in 1938 or 1939, Thomas and Bertha, who were recorded in the 1935 electoral register as living at Arundine House, moved to 15 Howes Place, Cambridge, where they shared a house with Annie, Charles' widow. Bertha died there on 28 February 1939. Thomas served as the executor for her will, which named him as Thomas Alfred Brock, artist.[92] Thomas did not long survive Bertha, dying on 20 October 1939, after a short illness, at the house he was sharing with Annie. He was buried in the same plot as Charles and Bertha at Histon Road Cemetery, Cambridge.[73]

The following illustration by Thomas were from the Monograph of the Palaeontographical Society Volume 63 in 1909. Thomas contributed many illustrations to the monograph from 1900 on.[93] Cambridge University Press recently reissued a classic text on Fossil Plants which features at least one illustration by Thomas.[94]

Henry Matthew "Harry" Brock RI was born on Sunday, 11 July 1875. He was the most prolific illustrator of the Brocks, and one of the most prolific illustrators of his generation.[12]^: 55 He was the longest living of the Brock brothers, dying at the age of 85. Of his siblings, only Katharine, who lived to 91, was longer living. Kelly includes in the plates in his book a photograph of Henry working away at his easel at 78 years of age.[1]^: 48-49

Like his siblings he was educated first at St. Barnabas, and like his brothers he also attended the Higher Grade Boys' School. Here he was a regular prize winner. When he attended the Cambridge School of Art, he was repeatedly awarded a free studentship by the Science and Art Department at South Kensington.

His first book illustration appears to have been a collaborative effort with Charles for a history reader by Macmillan. This was followed by 40 illustrations for Frederick Marryat's Japhet in Search of a father (Macmillan, London. 1885). From then on he was illustrating books and magazines almost up until his death.

Henry married Doris Joan Pegram (12 June 1886 – 1 November 1979[95][96] at St. Paul's in Hampstead on 7 September 1912.[97] Doris was the eldest daughter of the Henry's cousin, sculptor Henry Alfred Pegram and Alice Lambert (born 13 January 1865),[98][99] described as an artist's model in the 1881 census. Both Houfe and Kirkpatrick state that Doris was the sister of illustrator Fred Pegram.[8]^: 245[12]^: 57 but close examination of the census returns show that Thomas Weely Pegram was Richard's maternal grandfather, Fred's paternal grandfather, and Doris's paternal great-grandfather.</ref> Therefore, Doris was a daughter of Fred's first cousin, and Henry was Fred's first cousin.[note 22]

The couple lived at a house that Henry had designed at "Woodstock", 63 Storey's Way, in Cambridge. After the Second World War, the couple move back to Arundine House, which had now been divided into three apartments. They lived in Flat 2 and Flat 3 with their two daughters. The couple had three children:

• Margaret Marion Brock (12 November 1913 – 3 January 1967)[95][100] She attended the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge.[1]^: 11 Marion was heavily involved with the Women's Institute in Cambridge. Marion never married and she was still living in one of the Arundine house flats when she died suddenly and unexpectedly in Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge) on 3 January 1967.[1]^: 11[100]
• Joan Penelope Brock (11 February 1917 – 21 September 1992)[95][101] Like her sister she attended the Perse School for Girls.[1]^: 11 Joan was working for a firm of picture-framers in London when she returned to look after her ageing mother.[1]^: 12
• Bevis Henry Brock (22 February 1921 – 7 November 2005)[95][102] Bevis attended The Leys School and then Clare College, Cambridge to study medicine, and went on to take his clinical training at King's College Hospital and eventually qualified as an orthopaedic surgeon. He married Margaret Dorothy Cave (5 May 1919 – 29 May 1992),[103][104] the superintending physiotherapist at Kings. Unfortunately, Dorothy contracted rubella while she was pregnant, and Christopher Bevis Brock (27 November 1946 – ) was born deaf, dumb, and blind.[note 23] Margaret founded the Rubella Group charity, which was later renamed to Sense. Margaret got an OBE for her work with the charity, and she published a biography of Christopher Christopher: A Silent Life (Macmillan, London. 1975).[105]^: life

The couple had one other child, a daughter, Elizabeth A Brock (26 August 1950) who followed in her mother's footsteps by training as a physiotherapist, but contracted Multiple Sclerosis and died in her forties. After Margaret dies, he married a long-serving sister in the Salisbury hospitals, but she also predeceased him.[106]

The Brocks were so much in demand that they employed no agent until after the First World War.[1]^: 11 Illustrated gift books were in decline after the war and were finally extinguished by the financial crash of 1929 – 1930.[50]^: 2 Over the course of his life, Henry illustrated over 550 books.[12]^: 60-73 Some of these books were illustrated in collaboration with others, but it still represents an enormous workload, especially when all of his other work is taken into account, not just the 415 illustrations for Punch but all of the illustrations for magazines and serial stories.

Henry was living at the Arundine House address (in flat 2 of 35 Madingley Road) when he died on 21 July 1960.[107] His eyesight had been worsening since the Second World War, and his daughter-in-law reported him as making, with difficulty, a sketch of her deaf, dumb, and blind son, and then saying that it was questionable as to which of them had the worse eyesight.[105]^: 13 Henry's sight continued to deteriorate as he grew older.[12]^: 59 Doris lives on until 1 November 1979, and was one of the principle informants for the biography of the Brocks by Kelly.[1]^: 11

The following medical-themed Punch illustrations are by courtesy of the Wellcome Collection. Henry had 415 illustrations published in Punch from 19 July 1905 to 6 March 1940.

Katherine Alison "Kate" Brock was born on Sunday, 10 December 1876. She attended the Girl's Higher Grade school. She has some artistic ability as she took 1st Class in Model Drawing at the Cambridge School of Art in 1893, and also passed Geometrical Drawing.[28] In 1895 she won prizes both for a study of flowers from nature and a prize for success in examinations at the School of Art.[26] Katharine might have become an artist like her brothers, but as Kelly notes, in the manner of the time she stayed at home as the mainstay of the household as her mother grew old and infirm.[note 24]

Katharine was very involved with the Chapel on St. Andrew's Street, Cambridge. She was the president of the St. Andrew's Girls Guild,[18] supported fundraising efforts, and was a regular performer at social functions, manning a stall at the 1903 Puritan Bazaar with her sister Bertha and featuring in the concert afterwards with Charles and Thomas.[38] Katharine not only did the sweets with her sister-in-law Annie Dudley, but also contributed to the evening concert at the sale of work for the Baptist Missionary Society in 1908.[20] Katharine sang at the function on 12 March 1909, together with Gertrude Alice Struggles, who later married Katharine's brother-in-law, Dudley James Smith, who played in a quartet that evening with his future wife, and with Katharine's brother Thomas.[108]

Katharine wrote poetry and saw it published in magazines,[109][110][111] and newspapers.[112][113]

Katharine married her brother-in-law, Harold Lindsey Smith (31 May 1880 – 29 September 1961),[114] a bookseller's assistant dealing with overseas correspondence, in the third quarter of 1911,[115] nine years after her brother Charles had married Harold's sister Annie Dudley. Like the Brocks, the Smiths were a close family and, after the death of the third sibling Dudley James Smith (18 December 1883 – 18 August 1917) in Flanders during World War I, the electoral register shows Harold and Katharine lived next door to his widow Gertrude Alice (Struggles) (4 October 1888 – 14 August 1974).[116][note 25]

Harold and Katharine had two daughters, Alison Lindsey (24 July 1912 – 26 March 2006), who married Arthur Harvey, an engineer, and Barbara Noel (25 December 1913 – 31 July 2000),[114][118] a poet who published at least four volumes of poetry. Barbara married the mathematician Bernard Scott (27 Aug 1915 – 7 November 1993).[119] in Cambridge, England during the third quarter of 1939. The couple had four sons and the marriage was dissolved in 1972.[note 26] Barbara died in Burgess Hill, West Sussex on 31 July 2000, and was cremated in Cambridge on 16 August 2000, with her family taking away the ashes.[120] Barbara's son Colin Richard and his wife Diane were her executors, and her son Godfrey Peter, then living in Ann Arbor Michigan, as her literary executor.[121]

Katharine died in Lewes, Sussex on 31 December 1967. She was the last and the longest lived of the seven Brock children. She was cremated at the Cambridge City Council's crematorium at Dry Drayton on 5 January 1968 and her ashes were scattered in the crematorium garden.[122]

This poem, "The Long Night", by Katharine, appeared in the Sunday Magazine and was republished in several newspapers.[123]

Night spreads her cool, dark wings o'er all the land,
  And under them I fain would fall asleep;
Fain would find rest for weary heart and hand,
  And eyes that now unwilling vigil keep.

Yet, o'er and o'er, the doings of the day
  With wearying insistence fill the brain;
And hour by hour the long night steals away,
  And still I wake, and seek for sleep in vain.

The window shows square of lesser dark,
  And frames a space of star-besprinkled sky;
So small a space, and yet how many a spark,
  Each spark a world, gleams there before mine eye.

Countless they seem, yet, thinking to beguile
  Some of the tedious moments left of night,
Idly I undertake the task, and while
  I know it hopeless, count those points of light.

When lo! it slowly dawns upon mind
  That this is sunlight creeping o'er the bed
And I, no longer weary, wake to find
  Sleep was guest, all unknown till she fled.

Bertha Matilda was born at 4 Perowne Street, Cambridge on Sunday 7 December 1879.[124] She was the baby of the family, but very little is known about her.

The Electoral Register shows Bertha and Thomas both living at Arundine House in 1935, but at the time of her death she was living at 15 Howes Place, Cambridge, again with Thomas. Charles's Widow was also at that address in 1939. Bertha died there, after a short illness, on 28 February 1939, and was buried in Histon Road cemetery together with Charles, who died 12 months before her and Thomas who died 8 months after her.[124]