Life and works

Brough was born in London, the son of Barnabas Brough (died 1854), a brewer, publican, wine merchant and later dramatist, and his wife Frances Whiteside, a poet and novelist. He was the brother of writer Robert

Robert Barnabas Brough

Robert Barnabas Brough was an English writer. He wrote poetry, novels and plays and was a contributor to many periodicals.-Life and work:...

, actor Lionel

Lionel Brough

Lionel Brough was a British actor and comedian. After beginning a journalistic career and performing as an amateur, he became a professional actor, performing mostly in Liverpool during the mid-1860s...

 and science writer John Cargill Brough (1834–1872). His father was briefly kidnapped by the Chartists in 1839 and was a prosecution witness at the trial of the Chartist leader John Frost

John Frost (Chartist)

John Frost was a prominent Welsh leader of the British Chartist movement in the Newport Rising....

, which resulted in Frost's deportation to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. The family was ostracised and ruined financially as a result, and they moved to Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 in 1843. Brough was educated at Newport, Monmouthshire, and apprenticed to a printer at Brecon

Brecon

Brecon is a long-established market town and community in southern Powys, Mid Wales, with a population of 7,901. It was the county town of the historic county of Brecknockshire; although its role as such was eclipsed with the formation of Powys, it remains an important local centre...

.

To the Liverpool Lion, a venture of his brother Robert, whom he joined in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, William Brough contributed his first literary effort, a series of papers called Hints upon Heraldry. Like his brother, whose reputation has overshadowed his own, Brough wrote in many periodical publications. His dramatic works, chiefly Victorian burlesques, were seen at many of the London theatres. He also wrote the first of the quasi-dramatic entertainments given by Mr. and Mrs. German Reed.

He married Ann Romer, known as a singer, who died a year after her marriage, leaving him one child. He subsequently remarried, and died at age 43, leaving a widow and six children.