Thanks, Molly! Have gone quite a bit further now. John Brown emigrated in 1881 with Louisa Ann Evans, granddaughter of William Willey, a prominent Sheffield cutler who had moved to London in the 1840s. After his death in 1853 his daughter Mary inherited his shop at 21 Fish Street Hill in the City of London (close to the Great Fire Monument). She married Evan Evans who continued to run the shop as a tobacconist/newsagent which also sold cutlery. Louisa was their daughter. But although John Brown had been living in Sheffield for several years, I've found no Sheffield connection between the two families.
John Brown left a family in Sheffield (including a son, Frank, born in 1882 after John had already sailed to New York). After John left, his wife Caroline and their 6 children moved from Plumpton Street to Court 5, 8 Cambridge Road, Heeley - sounds to me like much smaller and cheaper accommodation. Caroline petitioned for divorce in 1894, and John Brown and Louisa Ann then married in Camden, New Jersey, in 1895. Frank eventually joined him in America and managed the organ-building business after his father's retirement.
