Bramhills in literature

Many Bramhills have been known to put pen to paper in their own right. However, the cream of the world's writers have ignored the family name ... except George Eliot and Dorothy L Sayers.

George Eliot: The Sad Fortunes of The Reverend Amos Barton: Authoress Eliot mentioned us in Chapter Six of The Sad Fortunes of The Reverend Amos Barton where Mr Ely asks Mr Fellowes:

By the by, do you know to whom Lord Watling has given the Bramhill living?"
There's no further explanation ... but it may be a reason for the disappearance of the family fortune!

Eliot came from Warwickshire. A William Broomhall, age 40, moved from Talard Green, Shropshire, to appear on the 1851 Liverpool Census, while the oldest known Bramhill, Robert de Bramhal, came from Worcestershire in 1221. Shropshire, Warwickshire and Worcester are all in the same part of England, roughly speaking.

Dorothy L Sayers: Lord Peter Wimsey: At least the Bramhill in Essex writer Dorothy L Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey detective story has a higher social status.

The book is set in the Fens (only 50 miles to the south of Epworth) and the villain of the piece is in jail as the story opens.

At one point, a police detective is retelling the history of the villain's trial to Lord Peter. It turns out that the judge who sent down the villain was one Mr Justice Bramhill. He is later mentioned as Lord Bramhill.

Unfortunately he is not even a major character in the book, and gets just two mentions.

More recently, a William Bramhill (not yours truly!) has illustrated Scholastic Spelling for the US education market.