yeovil people

brett mctier

Glove Manufacturer and Innkeeper

 

Brett McTier was born in Yeovil in 1798, the son of Frederick McTier and Ann née Brett, the  daughter of William Brett. Brett's baptism was recorded in the Independent Church Register of Births on 7 March 1798; just three days after the baptism of another young boy who would grow up to become a glove manufacturer, Samuel Duffett.

In the 1820s McTier was a Freemason in Yeovil's Lodge of Brotherly Love, being initiated in 1823 but he resigned in 1828. During the 1830s he was a member of Yeovil's Vestry.

Initially Brett was a glove manufacturer in partnership with Thomas Busby but, according to the edition of 27 July 1839 of Perry's Bankrupt Gazette, the partnership was dissolved on 25 March of that year.

In the 1840 edition of the Somerset Gazette Directory, Brett McTier was listed as a glove manufacturer of Hendford although in the Register of Electors of 1841 he was listed as a glove manufacturer with a dwelling in South Street and a factory in Middle Street. In 1847 he was a member of the jury of the inquest into the death of George Wellington.

He was married to a daughter of Henry and Maria Bullen who had been running the Three Choughs Hotel since the 1790s and in the 1851 census Brett was listed as the innkeeper alongside his mother-in-law Maria. His wife, 15 years his junior, was simply listed in the census as E McTier (Elizabeth) and Brett's two daughters, one aged 18 and a governess the other (Mary) aged seven and a scholar were both listed as M McTier.

Brett McTier died on 28 May 1859 in Brighton, Sussex, and the 1861 census showed Elizabeth as a widow, working as a housekeeper in St Giles Cripplegate, London, with her daughter Mary. His name, together with his 4-year old daughter Sophia Jane who died in 1844, is recorded on a memorial stone on the footpath of the Congregational church (now the United Reformed church) in Princes Street.

 

Brett McTier's signature against the Vestry minutes of 8 September 1836.

 

 

IN MEMORY OF
EBENEZER HUGHES
WHO DIED SEP 15 1854
AGED 53 (?)
OF HENRY BOLLEN
SON OF EBENEZER WILSON
AND JANE HUGHES
BORN MAY 2 1852
DIED JUNE 9 1853
ALSO OF BRETT McTIER
WHO DIED MAY 28 1859
AGED 63
AND OF SOPHIA JANE
DAUGHTER OF BRETT
AND ELIZABETH McTIER
WHO DIED JAN 27 1844
AGED 4 YEARS


Above left is the memorial stone set into the pavement of the former Congregational Church in princes Street, and to the right is the inscription. Photographed 2014.