Richard Brough
In 2024 the Brough Family Organization produced a 26-page all-color booklet about Richard Brough (1786-1873) and his Descendants, including three of his children who left England and emigrated to the United States and eventually settled in Utah. This booklet is now available as a PDF on CD and is available HERE.
History of Richard Brough (b.1786)
and Mary Horleston (b.1795)
and their Descendants
and Mary Horleston (b.1795)
and their Descendants
by R. Clayton Brough and Marie B. Nielson, 2004
Updated by R. Clayton Brough in September 2020
Richard Brough was born on 14 February 1786 in Trentham, Staffordshire. As a young man, Richard learned the trades of carpentry and brickmaking.
When Richard Brough was 19 years of age, he joined the British Army as a private, and served for the next "17 years and 184 days" in the 8th Battalion of the Royal Artillery Service. During most of Richard's military service, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland fought against Napoleon's "Greater French Empire" that dominated much of Europe.
Richard Brough's military career is well documented and has been summarized by Patricia E. Martin, a military genealogist and historian, as follows:
"Richard Brough was a tall man for the period, 5 ft 11½ inches in height with a brown complexion, brown hair and grey eyes.
"When [Richard Brough] enlisted for 'Unlimited Service' on 10 September 1805 at Newcastle, Staffordshire, he gave his age as 18 years, although, for whatever reason, this [was] not strictly accurate.
"Following his enlistment in 1805, Richard initially joined Captain R. Buckner's Company of 8th Battalion of the Royal Artillery 'From Adjutant's Detachment' in May 1806. At the time it was based at Chatham [located east of London and near the North Sea] but in August sailed to Plymouth [located on the southwest coast of England] before re-embarking on 13 September to sail to Sicily [Italy] where the Company mustered [or assembled] at Messina [on the northeast tip of the island of Sicily, Italy] on 6 December. Apart from the month of June at Milazzo, 1807 was spent at Messina.
"In 1808, the Company continued in Messina until May; but in June it mustered at Syracuse [now called Siracusa and located on the southeast tip of the island of Sicily, Italy] before returning to Messina in November. During the year the command of the Company passed from Captain R. Buckner to Captain J. S. Williamson.
"In 1809, the Company continued at Messina until it formed a detachment of Artillery consisting of 4 officers and 98 men as part of Maj-Gen Sir J. Stuart's force which embarked at Milazzo on 21 May and which sailed on 11 June for operations in the Bay of Naples resulting in the capture of [the islands of] Ischia and Procida [off the coast of Naples in southern Italy] by 1 July. The force returned to Milazzo on 29 July. The Company then embarked again on 23 September for Zante [an island off the west coast of Greece] arriving on 1 October and mustered there for the remainder of the year.
"The Company remained based in Zante throughout 1810 and 1811 until returning to Messina once again until the middle of 1812. However, in March 1810, Captain Williamson's Company provided a detachment of artillery to Brig-Gen Oswald's force that sailed from Zante on 21 March and captured Santa Maura (Leucada) [an island off the west coast of Greece which today is called Lefkada, Greece] on 16 April. The detachment consisted of Captain Williamson himself, another officer 2/Captain C. Gilmour, a sergeant and 56 rank and file. From [a copy of] a muster from that time it can be seen that Gunner Richard Brough was included with a number of men noted as 'On Command' and was therefore one of the detachment.
"In July 1812, the whole Company set sail again, this time for Spain and was mustered on board ship in Palomas Bay, Catalonia [on the coast of northeast Spain] on 1 August and at Alicante [on the coast of southeast Spain] in September.
"In 1813, it moved to Castalla for April and May and were in camp before Tarragona [in northeast Spain] in August, at Valls [in northeast Spain] in November and at Vendrelle [now called Vendrell and located in northeast Spain] in December.
"The Company remained in Eastern Spain until May 1814, whereupon it returned to Italy, this time to Genoa [now called Genova and located in northwest Italy]. At the end of the year Captain Williamson was promoted to Major and the command of the Company passed on Captain J. P. Adye.
"In 1815, the year of Napoleon's final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, the company remained in Genoa apparently without incident, but moved on to spend the months of March to July 1816 in Malta [an island country south of Sicily, Italy, in the Mediterranean Sea], before landing in Corfu [an island off the northwest coast of Greece that is now called Kerkira, Greece] in August.
"The Company remained stationed in Corfu until 1822, by which time the command had been passed on once again, this time to Captain J. A. Clement. However, on 19 September it embarked on the troopship 'Intrepid' for the return home, arriving at Woolwich [which is located near London along the River Thames] on 13 December. It was significant that Richard went before the Pensions Board a few days later on 21 December.
"[Richard Brough's] premature discharge was 'in consequence of being unfit for Service from an old injury to the ankles and [he was] placed upon the Pension List at one Shilling per diem commencing the 1st January 1823.' [After Richard Brough was discharged from the British military, he receiving a pension for his military services up until his death in 1873. In addition, Richard was a 'Chelsea Pensioner' (as described in the 1851 Census), which suggests he performed his more than seventeen years of military service with excellence and/or unique braveness. In fact, his status as a 'Chelsea Pensioner'--which was not awarded to most men in the British military--entitled him in his old age to residential care at the Royal Hospital at Chelsea, London, if family members or people in his local community were not able to take care of him in his declining years. (See Ann Brough Hind Research Report, page 578, March 8, 2002.)]
"[When Richard Brough] was discharged at Woolwich he was given Marching Money for his return to his place of enlistment. ...This was calculated at on the basis of 1 shilling 8 pence per day for 16 days march at 10 miles per day. After deducting his daily pension of 1 shilling a day this worked out at 10 shillings and 8 pence.
"[Richard Brough's] total service [in the British military was] 17 years and 184 days."
(The above quoted comments by Patricia E. Martin were extracted from a detailed research report she sent to the RBFO on 30 October 2002. Additional comments, punctuation and/or geographical descriptions-which generally appear within brackets [ ]-have been added by R. Clayton Brough.)
Three years after leaving the military, Richard Brough married Mary Horleston on 7 August 1825, in Stoke-Upon-Trent, Staffordshire. At the time of their marriage, Richard was 39 years old and Mary was 30 years old (born about 1795). Prior to their marriage, Mary had already had two children: James Hollison (chr. 1816) and John Hollison (chr.1821). Following their marriage, and between 1825 and 1843, Richard and Mary had ten children: Ellen (chr. 1825), Jane (born 1826), Richard (chr. 1827), William (born 1829), Adry (chr. 1831), Thomas (born 1832), Elizabeth (born 1834), Mary Ann (born 1836), (Miss) Brough (born 1838), and Samuel (born 1839).
As a husband and father, Richard's primary occupation was that of a brickmaker. According to British census reports, Richard and Mary lived in Longton (at 28 Sutherland Road) in 1841, in Blurton, Trentham (at 109 Stone Road) in 1851, and in Trentham (on Russell Street) in 1871-where at 85 years of age Richard was still being identified as a "brickmaker."
By 1840, Richard Brough had decided to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). He was the first "Brough" to join the LDS Church in England. Richard was baptized into the LDS Church on June 20, 1840, at Frooms Hill, Herefordshire, England. On September 28, 1840, he was ordained to the office of a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood by LDS Apostle Wilford Woodruff in Hanley, Staffordshire.
Richard was an active member in the LDS Church during the remainder of his life. In 1856-1857, he blessing at least two unrelated children in the LDS Longton Branch of Staffordshire, and Richard and Mary Brough had William Franklin Pace Sr. (1806-1876), a LDS missionary serving in England (during 1856-1858), stay at their home on the following days: October 25, 1857, December 23, 1857, January 6, 10, 27, 31, 1858, and February 6, 8, 1858.
After Richard Brough joined the LDS Church, five of his children eventually did the same thing: Elizabeth was baptized in 1847, Thomas was baptized in 1849, and Adry, Mary Ann and Samuel were baptized in 1857. In 1856, Thomas and Elizabeth and their spouses left England and emigrated to the United States to join other members of the LDS Church who were moving westward to the Territory of Deseret-now called Utah. Samuel and his wife left England for Utah in 1863. Thomas Brough married Jean (Jane) Paterson in 1851, Elizabeth Brough married Samuel Cartlidge in 1852 and Enoch Tipton in 1864, and Samuel Brough married Elizabeth Bott in 1858. Today their descendants number in the thousands and make up the majority of the membership of the Brough Family Organization (BFO)--one of the largest ancestral family organizations in the world.
Richard Brough and Mary Horleston's third child and oldest son, Richard (chr. 1827), married Rosannah Myatt in 1846. One of Richard and Rosannah's grandson's, Thomas Myatt (Brough), left England for Australia between 1881 and 1888, where he and his wife, Ellen France, raised a family of 10 children in New South Wales, Australia. Since 1988, some of Richard Brough and Mary Horleston's descendants living in Utah have been in contact with some of the Australian descendants of Thomas Myatt (Brough) and Ellen France.
Richard Brough died in 1873 in Trentham, Staffordshire, when he was "86" years old, and was buried in the "Dresden Church of the Resurrection" in Dresden. However, the specific location of his gravesite in the churchyard is not known. When BFO officials visited the Dresden church in 2008 it was closed and part of its churchyard was overgrown. Today (July 2014) the Dresden church is known as the Orthodox Parish of St. Michael the Archangel.
Mary Horleston died in 1879 in Longton, Staffordshire, when she was "80" years old, and was buried in St. John church in Longton. However, St. John's was demolished in 1979, and Mary's remains (along with those of many other people who were buried at St. John) were cremated and moved to a combined memorial site now located in the churchyard of St. James the Less and St. John in Longton.
Composite Picture of Richard Brough
In July 2009, the RBFO commissioned Juan Maestas, a professional graphic artist, to draw a composite picture of what Richard Brough might have looked like--based on similar facial characteristics of four of his children: Thomas Brough, Samuel Brough, Mary Ann Brough, and Elizabeth Brough. Juan Maestas's composite drawing of Richard Brough is shown below.
Military Service of Richard Brough
Richard Brough joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1840
Genealogical Documents about Richard Brough
Genealogical Documents about Mary (Horleston) Brough
