Barrow's interest in the firm was short-lived: he sold his four shares two-and-a-half years later. Branston did the same in the following year, but at that meeting in 1882 Major Egerton was made chairman and Brown was appointed secretary, manager and editor at a salary of £200 a year. That salary remained unchanged for 21 years, at the end of which time Brown himself proposed that it should be cut to £156, because he was handing over the responsibility of night work to a younger man.