Crutch Family

Lilla Brown, who was more usually known as Lila, was one of the six daughters of George Charles and Mary Brown of The Bell Inn, Cheyney Street. She was born 12 November 1889 and baptised at Steeple Morden 25 December 1889.

Lila married Henry John Crutch in Eton registration district in 1917. They initially lived in Devon and their only child Barbara Agnes was born in the Totnes registration district on 19 February 1919. In 1922 the Crutch family were living at 19 The Broadway, Eltham, Surrey and by 1939 in Tonbridge, Kent.

Henry ran two furniture shops at 188 High Street, Tonbridge and 11 High Street, Tunbridge Wells trading as Crutch Brothers. Henry died 29 September 1960 at Knox House, 210 High Street, Tonbridge, just down the road from the shop. Not long after Henry’s death Lila moved back to Steeple Morden and lived in a small bungalow erected for her in the grounds of the Mill, Station Road, which was owned by her brother in law and sister Theodore and Margaret Saunderson, who lived across the road at the Odsey Way Poultry Farm. The bungalow was known as The Old Mill and sometimes simply The Bungalow. Lila lived there until she died 14 July 1977.

Their daughter Barbara married at Tonbridge in 1942 to Bryden G Seagoe, who was a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner in the RAF. He was killed in action on 17 April 1942, shortly after the marriage. Barbara remarried in 1945 at Kensington, London to George Andrew Elliott Smyth, who had farmed at Gatley End, Steeple Morden since 1937.