Frank Hearn Brinsmead

Frank Hearn Brinsmead was the fourth child of Thomas Edward Brinsmead, a piano maker who at one time worked in the John Brinsmead and Sons. factory in London. He was born on August 14, 1873 in St. Giles, Middlesex, England in the Camden area of North London. He was baptised at St. George, Bloomsbury, on November 16th of 1873. On the 1881 census, at age 8, he is a student living with his parents at 36 Ashdown Street, St. Pancras. In 1900, at St. Pancras, in London, he married Fanny Nichols Dench born 1875 in Brighton, in Sussex, England.

 

In the 1901 census he is listed at  4 St. George's Rd, St. Pancras as a baker and bread maker. The bakery business obviously did not go as well as it might, because on January 11th, 1905 the Times of London reports that he was adjudged bankrupt. His address at the time is listed as Stibbington Street, Clarendon Square, Somerstown, London N.W.

At some point between 1905 and 1909 Frank Hearn Brinsmead and his wife Fanny decided to emigrate to New Zealand. We know the latest possible date because of a 1909 article about the couple. They began life in New Zealand by buying a Sweet Shop in the Mount Eden area for £25. Business proved less profitable than they had hoped and they sued for damages. They failed in that attempt, in part because of the defendant's evidence that the drop in trade was due to their not opening until late morning and closing early.

1911 has Frank living at a private hotel in St. Helier's Bay. He encouraged his younger brother Victor to join him there. Victor and his wife left England in 1913, planning to go to New Zealand, but disembarked  in Hobart in Tasmania and settled there instead. By 1914, Frank and Queenie were living in Manurewa, (close to Auckland, on the north Island) New Zealand with Frank again working as a baker.

Frank seems to have narrowly escaped war service. His name was called up in the ballot announced in January, 1918, but peace broke out just in time. In February, 1919, Frank, and several others were fined in Police court for the heinous crime of taking a short cut across the local cricket pitch. In 1928, Frank had to testify at an inquest after an employee of his committed suicide after a period of depression. The man drove a baker's cart for Frank, someone he had known for 20 years. Frank was said then to live in Grey Lynn, a suburb of Auckland..

Frank kept in touch with his brother Victor and the couples visited each other, as shown in this picture of Frank and Queenie (back row couple on the right), in Tasmania with his brother's family in 1930.

During World War II, Frank was enlisted in the Second Reserves, and lived in Manurewa, Manuau. His home at the time of his death was at 11 Westmere Park Avenue, Auckland. New Zealand Cemetery Records show that Frank Brinsmead died on September 5th, 1934 and he was buried two days later in the Church of England Cemetery at Purewa, Auckland.

After Frank's death, the only account we have found of Queenie is of her participating in a Women's Progress Club debate, arguing for the negative side of the motion "That married Women Should be Wage Earners". Her side won. Fanny died on August 18th, 1964 and is buried in the same place as Frank. As far as we know, the couple had no children.