Friends of Hastings Cemetery

EE M34 - Thomas Brandon and Celia Brett

In Remembrance of

Celia

66 years devoted wife of

T B Brett

Born May 23rd 1821

Died October 19th 1900

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Also of Thomas Brandon Brett

Husband of the above named Celia Brett

For many years proprietor

Of the St Leonards and Hastings

Gazette and writer of

Local History

Born May 30th 1916

Died April 4th 1906

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"Honour thy Father and thy Mother

That thy days may be long in the land

that the Lord, thy God giveth thee"

Mrs Brett Dies - October 26, 1900

Mrs Celia Brett, wife of the well-known local historian and journalist Thomas Brandon Brett, died on 19 October, aged 77, at their home in Norman Road

BRETT, Thomas Brandon, 1816-1906. Born in George St, son of blacksmith; briefly at Mr Neve’s school in Bourne St, back to work in 1830.  Activities included ‘baking, blacksmithing, drapery, post office duties, tutoring, music and private teaching, bandmaster, dancing master, pedagogue, amateur architect, correspondent of country newspapers’; taught himself painting, glazing, carpentering, paper hanging and bricklaying; a keen meteorologist, and music composer; started printing 1854; injured right hand badly, but was ambidextrous.

In 1868 he signed a deed in the Bankruptcy Court, to repay his creditors

From a New Zealand Newspaper

Mr Thomas Brandon Brett, a veteran Sussex journalist, died at St. Leonards early in April last, within a few weeks of his ninetieth year. He was the father of Mr R. B. Brett, London manager of the New Zealand Press Agency, and the uncle of Mr. Henry Brett, of the Auckland Star. [Later knighted for his services to New Zealand journalism; he had married a childhood friend from Westfield.]   The deceased journalist was at one time a schoolmaster.  Sixty years ago he started a newspaper of his own in St. Leonards, and was closely connected with Sussex journalism till his death. It was his boast that since he was ten years old he worked eighteen hours a day.

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