Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on October 10, 2003 at 00:30:00 from 195.93.32.7 user ACB.
In Reply to: The REAL Big Five posted by Peter Willis on October 09, 2003 at 23:31:08:
I had been looking in the wrong place. Johnathan inspired me to have another go.
Dorothea read the papers, not just detective fiction. Here, courtesy of Google, once again, is a potted biography of one of the Big Five:
"William Fred Brown, known as "Farmer" Brown, was born in Chitterne in 1872. His parents were Willam Frederick and Sarah Brown who lived at the Chitterne Post Office, Bidden Lane (Shrewton Road). William senior, besides being the postmaster was also the Headmaster of the local school and his wife Sarah taught there too.
Young Fred and his three older sisters, Roza, Annie and Mary, were taught at their father's school. At 18 Fred went to London where he joined the Metropolitan Police on 5 February 1894 as PC 172 in M Division (Lambeth). He rose through the ranks to Detective Inspector and later became one of the "Big 5" at Scotland Yard. [Note: The Big Five was a journalists' nickname for the Detective Chief Superintendents in charge of the four London Districts in the Met, plus their colleague in charge of HQ CID (Branch C1) in Scotland Yard, when he was raised to their rank in 1921.]
On 18 January 1904 Fred married Mary Ann from Shadwell at St Mary's Church, Stratford Bow.
Fred retired from the Metropolitan Police on 8 August 1932 as Detective Superintendent CO/C1. He was 59 years old and had completed 38 years of service. He was awarded the M.B.E. in recognition of his service. He and his wife Mary retired to Chitterne, where they had always spent their annual holidays with Fred's sister Roza. They bought a row of terraced cottages in Bidden Lane, known as "steps cottages", which they had demolished and a house built on the land. They called the house "Syringa Cottage". Besides pottering in his garden, Fred was a Justice of the Peace, a Parish Councillor and helped with village events. He died suddenly in 1941, aged 68, when helping to find billets for the evacuees arriving from London. He and his wife are buried in St Mary's graveyard."