Character guide

William Brown

major

Also known as William, Master William, Mister William, Willy, Billy

William leads the Outlaws through a countryside of imagined ambushes, but his real genius is for catastrophe — hothouse flowers heaped on a teacher's desk, a bow and arrow that finds every window but its target. He loves fiercely and briefly, whether Miss Drew or a dancing field-mouse, and pursues each passion with no half-measures. His family braces for the fallout; readers get the pleasure of watching his logic, which is impeccable and entirely wrong, collide with grown-up life.

Ethel Brown

supporting

Also known as Miss Ethel

Ethel moves through the house as the family's elegant centre of gravity, admired at parties and pursued by tongue-tied young men like James French. She is fond of William in the abstract and exasperated by him in practice, especially when his schemes drag her into scandal or leave her blushing at the wrong moment. Her presence raises the stakes of William's mischief: what he wrecks is not just crockery but the delicate machinery of grown-up courtship.

Robert Brown

supporting

Also known as Robert, the anxious Robert

Robert inhabits the lofty world of new rifles and visiting friends, and treats William chiefly as a thing to be ordered out of rooms. His pomposity makes him a perfect target, and his fluster when things go wrong is almost as reliable as William's talent for causing them. He matters because he shows the household's pecking order — and how quickly it can be upended by an eleven-year-old with a plan.

Mr. French

supporting

Also known as Furtively Mr. French

Smitten at an evening party, James French lacks the nerve to approach Ethel directly, so he cultivates William instead — bribing him with white rats and poetry about red-gold hair. His kindness is genuine but his judgment is not, and he finds himself staggering down a lane with a sturdy eleven-year-old on his back, sweating and inwardly cursing. He embodies the novel's running joke that the surest way to reach the Brown family is through its most dangerous member.

Mrs. Brown

supporting

Also known as Both Mrs. Brown

She runs the household with weary competence, murmuring sums over the tradesmen's ledgers while refereeing William's demands for parties and his siblings' complaints. Her love for William is unquestioned, but so is her exhaustion, and she turns to doctors, guests, and anyone handy for reassurance when he claims mysterious illness. She grounds the comedy in real family life: the endless small negotiations that William treats as epic battles.

Jumble

supporting

Jumble arrives when William is at his lowest — bow confiscated, friends equipped, life not worth living — and answers a thrown stick with such delighted energy that despair simply cannot survive. Part fox-terrier, part retriever, part dachshund, wholly unashamed, he belongs to no one in particular until William claims him. His eager, worrying, stick-chasing companionship gives William's adventures a witness and a partner, and gives the stories their warmest, least complicated loyalty.

Mr. Brown

supporting

Mr. Brown presides over the household with a newspaper, a locked library cupboard, and a dwindling supply of patience. His running battle with William's archery, larder raids, and home-lesson ambushes reveals a man perpetually outmaneuvered by his own son. He matters because his weary authority sets the domestic stakes: every confiscated bow and pocketed key raises the price of William's next scheme.

Emily

minor

Also known as Aunt Emily

William's aunt who occasionally visits the Brown household.

Miss Cannon

minor

A strict teacher at William's school.

Henry

supporting

Henry belongs to the secret society of boys who meet in a disused barn to wrestle, cook blackened sausages, and drink licorice water. He owns Chips, the fox terrier who catches field-mice when no rabbits appear, and he shares William's appetite for adventure without ever quite leading it. His steady presence anchors the gang's rituals, making the Outlaws feel like a real institution rather than one boy's whim.

Douglas

supporting

Douglas is one of the four boys whose secret society gives William's half-holidays their shape and purpose. He shares in the sausage-burning, licorice-drinking, and rabbitless rambles that fill the Outlaws' afternoons, and his presence helps make William's leadership feel earned rather than assumed. Without him the gang would be a duo; with him it becomes a world.

Ginger

supporting

Also known as Genwin giant Ginger

Ginger is one of the four Outlaws, a boy whose possession of a bow and arrow makes William's confiscation sting all the more. He and the others pledge to be at the church door when William descends in white satin, turning a private dread into a public one. His loyalty and his teasing are the same thing, and that is precisely what makes the gang feel real.

Mr. Moss

minor

Also known as Moss

A local shopkeeper who deals with William's mischief.

Mr. Morgan

minor

A neighbor who often complains about William.

The Outlaws

supporting

Also known as V The Show The Outlaws

The Outlaws are William, Henry, Douglas, and Ginger, bound by secrecy and a shared appetite for mischief. Their barn meetings, larder raids, and rabbitless woods give William's days their structure and his leadership its meaning. They matter because they turn his solitary schemes into a collective world, and because their witnessing of his humiliations raises the stakes of every escapade.

Mother

minor

Generic term for William's mother, Mrs. Brown.

Father

minor

Generic term for William's father, Mr. Brown.

Cook

minor

The Brown family cook.

Mrs. Butler

minor

A neighbor of the Brown family.

Miss Drew

minor

Also known as Drew

A young woman who becomes a romantic interest for Robert.

Mrs. de Vere Carter

minor

A pretentious society woman who visits the village.

Miss Grant

minor

Also known as Grant

A teacher or governess in the village.

Mr. Jarrow

minor

A stern man who lives near the Browns.

Michael

minor

Also known as Poor Micky

A boy who briefly interacts with William.

Rufus

minor

A dog belonging to a neighbor.

Mr. Biggs

minor

Also known as Biggs

A local tradesman who encounters William.

Jane

minor

A maid or servant in the Brown household.

Ninette Jarrow

minor

Also known as Ninette, Jarrow, Miss Ninette Jarrow

Mr. Jarrow's daughter, a romantic interest for Robert.

Dorita

minor

A girl who briefly appears in the story.

Smuts

minor

A cat or pet mentioned in the narrative.

Miss Jones

minor

A teacher or acquaintance in the village.

Jack Morgan

minor

Also known as Jack

Mr. Morgan's son, a friend of William's.

Miss Brown

minor

Also known as the Brown

A visitor or relative of the Browns.

Chips

minor

A boy who is part of William's circle.

Daddy

minor

Affectionate term for Mr. Brown used by the children.

Dr. Ware

minor

Also known as poor Dr. Ware

The local doctor who treats the Brown family.

Joan

minor

A girl who catches William's attention.

Red Hand

minor

Also known as great Red Hand, Red

A character in a game played by the Outlaws.

Eric

minor

A boy who appears briefly in the story.

Paleface

minor

Also known as the Paleface

A character in the Outlaws' imaginative play.

Emma

minor

A maid or servant in the village.

George

minor

A minor character mentioned in passing.