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Annie (2) Woodhurst was born in 1875 at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk to parents Alfred Thomas (1) Woodhurst and his wife Frances Jane Clarke [Birth Index: Bury St. Edmunds 4a 568, 1875 (June)].
The 1881 Census finds her living with her parents at the "Suffolk Tap" public house, also known as the Coach House Rooms, in High Baxter Street, Bury St. Edmunds.
The 1891 Census finds her at age "15" living with her parents at 21, Meat Market in St. James Parish, Bury St. Edmunds. She was occupied as a barmaid.
She married Walter Brinkley at Bury St. Edmunds on February 27th 1898 [Marriage Index: Bury St. Edmunds 4a 853, 1898 (March)]. Relatives report that she produced the children listed below; and that Walter was born at Norton, Suffolk on March 18th 1873 [Birth Index: Stow, S. 4a 544, 1873 (June)].
She and Walter have not been located in the 1901 Census. It appears fairly certain that they were occupying the "Half Moon Tap" in (or accessed from) High Baxter Street; this was more-or-less next to the "Suffolk Tap" (or "Coach Rooms" or "Shades") where Annie (2) and her parents had been living in the 1880s. The 1901 Census schedule for High Baxter Street appears to be a little incomplete; a stretch of ancient timbered buildings, wherein these drinking holes seem to have been located, lay within an alley or thin yard connecting High Baxter Street to the Butter Market, roughly to the rear of the Suffolk Hotel, and the census enumerator may not have covered them all thoroughly, thereby omitting the Half Moon Tap - only the "Suffolk Hotel Shades" is named in the schedule.
However, in September 1901 Annie (2) featured in a newspaper report about an incident in Bury St. Edmunds in which she claimed that Walter had "occupied the Half Moon Tap since February 18th". So the Half Moon Tap is where Walter and his family must have been in early April when the 1901 Census was taken.
The incident reported (in the East Anglian Daily Times on September 20th 1901) concerned the theft of a stone mug by a customer of the Half Moon Tap. He had been brought before the magistrates' court where Annie (2) gave evidence for the prosecution, describing how she had witnessed him committing the theft and how Walter had then apprehended him. Walter also gave testimony confirming this. The culprit was sentenced to a month's hard labour.
Presently the family moved from Suffolk to Yorkshire. The 1911 Census finds them living at 7, Fred's Terrace, St. Paul's Street in Hull. Walter was now occupied as a greyhound trainer for the sport of coursing. They had with them only three children Gertrude, William and Lucy but their census form states that they had produced four children all of whom were still living. It is not known who or where the fourth child was. Some sources on Ancestry assert that this child was Alfred Walter Brinkley born on July 11th 1898 [Birth Index: Stow S. 4a 859, 1898 (Sept)] but without providing evidence.
Walter evidently travelled extensively in connection with his new occupation of dog training. He seems to have combined this with acquiring or leasing farmland, probably in order to provide the ground needed for the training. On December 14th he sailed from London on the P. & O. ship SS Ballarat bound for Australia, described on the ship's manifest as a farmer aged "38". He was unaccompanied by any family. He arrived at Sydney on February 1st 1915. Later that year, in October, he sailed from Melbourne to Wellington in New Zealand on the ship Wimmera II. He then sailed from Wellington to London on the Shaw Savill and Albion Line's ship SS Arawa, arriving at London in mid-December 1915; on this journey's manifest he was described as a dog trainer aged "36".
It is possible that by now Walter and Annie (2) had separated. The 1911 Census appears to be the last source in which they are seen together.
In 1918 Walter featured on a page, consisting wholly of photographs and captions, in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, issue of November 9th 1918, concerning a Sussex County Coursing Meeting at Aldingbourne. One of the photographs shows him with a greyhound named "Offer Again" belonging to the famous actor, director, writer and theatre manager Oscar Asche, for whom he was serving as dog trainer (Asche was reputed to have spent £40,000 on greyhounds after he had taken up enthusiasm for coursing in 1913). Asche was born in Victoria, Australia in 1871 and travelled extensively while quite young, eventually settling in London in about 1892-93. During his stage career he made periodic visits back to his homeland including theatrical tours during 1909-10 and 1911-12.
Walter and Asche were featured in more detail, again with photographs, in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, issue of March 27th 1920. The topic was chiefly about Asche having established his kennels at Barnham, a few miles from Aldingbourne. At Barnham Walter was the dog trainer:
" ... the Asche kennel is now at Barnham, a most suitable place in every way, while in Walter Brinkley, a trainer with both English and Australian experience, he has just the right man. ... Mr. Asche must have welcomed the close of the 1920 season, for he has not had the best of luck, but with young stock coming on and Brinkley now quite established in kennels which are all that they should be, there is surely a good time coming."
The article includes photographs of both Asche and Walter with various dogs. Moreover, it shows that Walter's daughter Lucy May was involved in the sport, as a photograph of her also appears, holding a "hare killed during trials".
Lucy was similarly photographed, with two greyhounds, at the Waterloo Cup Meeting - the major coursing event each year - held in 1922 held at Altcar near Liverpool. The photograph was reproduced nearly a century later in Country Life, issue of April 11th 2018, in a short article looking back on the Waterloo Cup. As the article remarks, the (arguably barbaric) sport of coursing ended in 2005 when the 2004 Hunting Act came into force.
This brief mention of Walter appears in the Belfast News Letter of December 31st 1927:
"Walter Brinkley, who has had a vast experience of training dogs in England, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and the Argentine, is taking 30 notable greyhounds to Manchester from the Grasmere Kennels, Eastergate, Sussex. Brinkley has leased in the district a farm and one hundred acres of land."
Walter died in Lancashire aged "62" in 1935 [Death Index: Oldham 8d 726, 1935 (Sept)]. This note appears in the Deaths column of the Bury Free Press, issue of September 28th 1935:
"BRINKLEY - Sept. 20th, suddenly, at Manchester, WALTER, second son of the late Walter Brinkley, Hill Farm, Norton, aged 62 years."
Meanwhile, Annie (2) may have been living in Middlesex in the 1920s and early 1930s, as her daughter Gertrude Ina married there in 1920 as so did her daughter Lucy May in 1930. However, in 1933 her third daughter Doris Mona married in Hampshire.
It is in Hampshire that Annie (2) appears in the National Register for England and Wales 1939. She was living in Gosport at 2, School Road in Elson, described as widowed and with birthdate May 27th 1875, in the household of her daughter Doris Mona.
Annie (2) died aged "77" in Gosport in 1952 [Death Index: Gosport 6b 276, 1952 (Dec)].
Gertrude Ina married in 1920 to Andrew William Milsom [Marriage Index: Uxbridge 3a 106, 1920 (June)] and by him produced three children Ena V., William V. and Kenneth D.
Lucy May was born in the village of North Cave about 15 miles from Hull. She married in 1930 to Thomas Lionel Banks [Marriage Index: Uxbridge 3a 102, 1930 (Sept)]. The wedding was reported in an article in the West Middlesex Gazette on August 23rd 1930. It noted that Thomas was attached to RAF Gosport (he was in fact a Flight Sergeant there). Lucy is described as the "daughter of Mrs. Annie Brinkley, 134, North Road, Southall" with no mention made of her father. A curious detail in this article is the naming of Lucy's chief bridesmaid as "Miss Norah Brinkley, sister". It might be thought at first that "Norah" was the missing fourth child implied by the 1911 Census; but no plausible birth registration exists for a child of that name and so more probably the chief bridesmaid was Lucy's still unmarried sister Doris, either misnamed by the reporter or misrendered in the editorial process.
Doris Mona married William Ernest Wood in 1933 [Marriage Index: Gosport 2b 1683, 1933 (Sept)]. The National Register for England and Wales 1939 finds them living at 2, School Road in Elson, Gosport and William described as a Flight Sergeant at RAF Gosport; his entry has an annotation indicating that he had later become a Sergeant in the Royal Marines (his father Ebenzer Charles had been a Corporal in the Royal Marines at the time of the 1911 Census, when William - born in Gosport in 1909 - was just 2 years old). In the 1940s William was a Royal Marine Gunner, ranked Acting Lieutenant (Quartermaster). The Supplement to the London Gazette on January 1st 1958 cited him in the New Year Honours as Captain (Quartermaster) in the Royal Marines, awarded an MBE in the Military Division, Royal Navy.