A Liverpool jewellers, silversmiths and watchmakers was loved by loyal customers in the city for over a century.
First established in Renshaw Street in 1830, T. Brown’s boasted a long history in Liverpool. A favourite with generations across the city, many will remember buying jewellery there, from rings to watches, christening bands and more.
The shop became part of the community and once was the place to go for a piece to mark a special occasion. Known affectionately as Brown's by many, couples will remember heading into store to choose their engagement or wedding rings, or it being the first place they bought a real piece of jewellery themselves.
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Immortalised in the best-selling novels of Lyn Andrews and Helen Forrester, the family business also had its fair share of celebrity visitors over the decades. In the high days of music hall, artists such as Evelyn Laye, the actress and singer, and the tenor Richard Tauber were among the customers and in its more recent history, Norman Wisdom, Les Dawson and Faith Brown bought jewellery there.
It was back in 1830 when Mr William Phillip opened a shop in Renshaw Street selling jewellery, glasses and gold teeth. His son, Edmund Dixon Phillip, was indentured for six years to Innocent Fattorini, a jeweller of distinction in Skipton, North Yorkshire.
When Edmund returned, the firm continued to flourish and was later called Dixon Phillip. His daughter Florence, born in 1884, trained in the shop and then married David Moss, another Liverpool jeweller.
By 1913, David and Florence, affectionately known as Bunty, took over the jewellery and silversmith’s shop of Thomas Brown, at the top of London Road. The couple’s daughter, Elsie, was born there before they moved to premises farther down London Road in the 1920s.
Elsie then married Harold Holgate, the shop’s manager, on the day war broke out, September 3, 1939. Their son David, the shop's last owner, was born two years later.
In 1958, the shop was rebuilt and the famous 19th-century clay clock outside the building was recased. Walking up London Road, it was a landmark shoppers and customers would usually spot.
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David Holgate’s grandmother ran the shop right up to her 101th year, and his father worked in the shop too. Back in the day, the family business was known for giving each couple who bought a wedding ring a sentimental gift that would be " woven around a poem."
David previously told the ECHO how the shop was one of the first to install a pneumatic discharge machine. He said: "We would zap the jewellery and even the watches, wrapped carefully, in these tubes up to the third floor so they could be examined. They were pulled by electrical suction.
"We were prolific in wedding and engagement rings of all kinds. We would give a lucky white heather and the six teaspoons with the wedding rings, which the staff made. People still come in and tell us that they have the teaspoons which they kept as a memento of the wedding."
Bunty, David’s grandmother, would write verses for the couples about to be married. He said: "It was to wish them every happiness on their perfect day.
"Then it said that we hoped they would have God’s treasures to keep them safe. We would write to the customers thanking them for coming to us, and saying that it had been a pleasure being of service."
But at 66, the dedicated jeweller retired after 50 years in the business. In 2007, the Liverpool ECHO reported the building in London Road was being sold by David, who had no-one in the family able to take the business on., after reaching retirement age and his children being well established in different occupations
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Rosemary Branigan, manageress for the past 25 years, started work at T. Brown when she was just 14 and was on "a pound a week." After 59 years in the shop, at the time of the closure she said it was "the end of an era."
She said: " It is part of Liverpool history. It really breaks my heart to see it go. I have sold engagement and wedding rings to three generations and we have such loyal customers.
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"I have also worked for three generations of this lovely family, who made me feel like one of them. I remember my boss Mr Holgate as a young schoolboy."
With a reputation for old-fashioned customer service, five very loyal staff plus an old friend and a distinctive Clay clock hanging outside, the business remains part of our city's memories. Many still talk fondly about the shop which called Liverpool home for 177 years and have cherished jewellery and keepsakes bought there.
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