Dr Walter Bryant
(1813-1888)
9 November 1861

Volume 5, page 225, sitting number 6393.

Born at 50 Edgware Road in London in 1813, the son of apothecary John Tripp Bryant and his wife Sophia née Hitchcock, Walter John Bryant was baptised at St Marylebone's on 2 April 1813. 

On 15 June 1840 at St Mary’s Marylebone he married Mary Anne Parris, daughter of Richard Neve Parris (deceased), a major in the Army. 

He appears on the 1851 census, aged 38, living at 7 Bathurst Street in Bayswater. He gave as his profession ‘Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, Licentiate of the Apothecaries [illegible] for General Practitioner.’ Also present on the night of the census was his wife Mary, aged 28, and their children: Mary E. (9), John H. (7), Emma A. (5), Sophia L. (3) and Walter T. (17 days). The household also included a governess, an assistant, a ‘monthly nurse,’ a nurse, a cook, a housemaid and a footman. 

Another daughter, Caroline Wentworth Lynn Bryant, was born in 1855. 

In 1856 Dr Bryant was appointed surgeon to the Second Regiment of the Royal Bucks Yeomanry Cavalry (Bicester Herald, 26 April 1856). 

In 1881 he was living at Highwoods, Burghfields Hill near Reading. The household included his wife, three unmarried daughters, plus a married daughter, her husband and their two small sons. Also present that night were five servants, with a coachman and his family and a gardener and his family also living at the property.

Dr Walter John Bryant died, aged 75, at Highwoods on 14 May 1888, leaving an estate valued at £28,517. 

‘We regret to announce the death of Dr Walter John Bryant, which took place at Highwoods on Monday. Dr Bryant, who was a physician of considerable eminence, and practised with success at the West End of London, had lived at Highwoods for many years. He took great interest in horticulture, and gave valuable support to some local societies which had been established for the benefit of the poorer classes. In politics Dr Bryant was a staunch Liberal’ (Berkshire Chronicle, 19 May 1888).