Brown

Sir Thomas Browne (19 October 1605 – 19 October 1682) was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. His father was a silk mercer from Upton. Sir Thomas is largely forgotten in Chester, where his family are much better known for their department store "Browns of Chester" (often once called "The Harrods of the North"). However, a large bronze of him (by Henry Alfred Pegram) is to be found in Norwich city center and his writings have been the subject of vast scholarship.

Sir Thomas' writings display a deep curiosity towards the natural world, influenced by the scientific revolution of Baconian enquiry. Browne's literary works are permeated by references to Classical and Biblical sources as well as the idiosyncrasies of his own personality. Although often described as suffused with melancholia, his writings are also characterised by wit and subtle humour, while his literary style is varied, according to genre, resulting in a rich, unique prose which ranges from rough notebook observations to polished Baroque eloquence. Sir Thomas is cited as the first to use many words in common usage today, and it is generally believed that these words were ones that he himself coined from his vast classical knowledge. Somewhat surprisingly, these words include: "computer" and "electricity". In the 18th century, Samuel Johnson, who shared Browne's love of the Latinate, wrote a brief Life in which he praised Browne as a faithful Christian and assessed his prose thus:


 * "His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented our philosophical diction; and, in defence of his uncommon words and expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and was not content to express, in many words, that idea for which any language could supply a single term"

Sir Thomas Browne is not a direct ancestor of the Browns who opened their famous store in Chester - the last common ancestors are his grandparents. However, a look at his ancestry reveals that there were significant connections between the Browns of Chester and the London fashion trade long before the store opened its doors. It also shows how the male line of the Browns from the Upton gentry almost died-out on the Chester side, and failed completely for the descendants of Sir Thomas.

"Brown's of Chester"


Number #32-34 is a Greek Revival building from 1828 which was the first element of what was to become Browns Department Store (N.B. Wikipedia states the oldest part of the store dates from 1858). Following the Commercial News Rooms (1807-8, which also involved a Brown), this second neo-classical building was the first purpose built store in the City. William Brown was a successful druggist and was married to Susannah Towsey, an ambitious milliner, and they began to import the latest fashions from London. Susannah (who was christened at St Peters in 1758) ran a little drapery and haberdashery shop with her sister, Elizabeth, at the corner by the Cross. Her family had been connected with the hattery and hosiery business in Chester from the early 1700's. In the 1780's Susannah and Elizabeth would take the stage coach down to London twice a year to select the new season's fashions from the City wholesalers. On returning to Chester they would place an advert in the local mewspaper inviting the public to come and view their collection.



Susannah married John Brown, who had his druggist's shop a few yards down the street, in 1788. Children of John & Susannah included William Brown b.10th Apr 1789 and Henry Brown b. 25th Jul 1795. Pigot's Directory of Cheshire 1828-29 lists 'Brown Wm & Hy Milliners Eastgate Street Row Chester'. The plans for the new shop were laid before the Assembly in 1828 and it was built by 1831.

Browns directly employed 150 women in their own dressmaking workroom in the 1870s.

Brown(e) of Upton
A good starting point for the story of the Browns of Chester is St Mary on the Hill, the original parish church of Upton, and where the Brownes provided many of the church-wardens. Earwaker's history of the church describes an early memorial board "formery placed against the north wall" (and since lost). The text reads:


 * "This was set up in the memory of Richard Browne, of Upton, in y* County of Chester, gent, sone and heire to Thomas Browne, by Elizabeth his Wife, daughter to Henry Birkenhead, Esq., Clerk of ye Green Cloth to Queen Elizabeth, sone and heir of Rich. Browne, sone and heir of Thomas Browne, of Upton, aforesaid. The abovesaid Rich d Browne died the 4 of January 1624, having had 2 Wives, first Frances, daughter to Sr George Beverley, of Huntington, Knt, who died without Issue, secondly to Mary, daughter to Sr Tho. Aston, of Aston, Knt, by whom he had Issue Thomas Browne of Upton and Richd of London. She afterfwards married Jacques Arnodio, gent, and dyed y° 17 Feb. 1668 5 Aged 87 Years. Thomas Browne sone and heire died at Munster in Ireland 1643: he married Grissell daughter to Dobb of Ireland, by whom he had Issue Thomas, Rob e, Francis, Richard, Mary, Judith, Grissell and Dorothy. She died in Childbed ye 19 of June 1641. Thomas Browne sone and heire married Cicely daughter to William Glegge of Gayton Esq, who died in Childbed of her Daughter Cicely the 16 of March Ano Dni 1661."

The Clerk of the Green Cloth was a position in the British Royal Household. The clerk acted as secretary of the Board of Green Cloth, and was therefore responsible for organising royal journeys and assisting in the administration of the Royal Household. Henry Birkenhead senior (1548-1613) was appointed to the office of Prenotary of the Counties Chester and Flint around 1600, and Henry Birkenhead junior (1572-1646) to the office of Custos Brevium of the same counties.

One notes something odd about the monomental board descibed above: it was supposedly set up by Elizabeth, the wife of the Richard Browne who died in 1578. "Elizabeth" then goes on to describe events as late as 1661: three generations later. It is possible that a later member of the family had the memorial board text added to, and if so, it is likely that was the Thomas Browne who died in 1702.

There was a separate bramch of the Brownes south of the River Dee in Netherleigh and they may have been involved in the relocation of the High Cross to Netherleigh (see: Cowper) after the Civil War.

Mathew Browne (d. 1634)
According to Earwaker his funeral certificate reads:


 * "Mathew Browne of the City of Chester, gentleman, dyed at his house in Handbridge vpon the .. daye of .. 1634 and was interred in St Maryes Church in Chester aforsayd. He married Katherine, daughter to Rafe Allen of the City of Chester, Alderman and widow of Mathew Ellis of Overleigh, nere Chester, gent and by him hay yssue Thomas, his sonne and heyre of the age of 14 years or thereabout at tyme of his fathers death, George 2nd sonne; Alice the only daughter. He has yssue also by her Elizabeth and Anne and a son not baptised which all dyed younge."

Richard Brown
The unfortunate Richard Browne of London is described as a London silk merchant prior to 1646 and then afterwards described as "of Upton". His lands were sequestered in 1646 (when he was aged about 20) and he oompounded for his estate at £24/15s. Given his relatively young age he can hardly have done much in the Civil War. Richard's father, another Richard, died at about the time of Richard's birth in early 1625. It is worth noting that he was not the only member of the Browne family who had moved to London to enter the trade of a mercer (silk merchant) at about this time - Thomas (d. 1613) father of Sir Thomas Browne had done the same. Curiously, at about the same time, the family of a future wife of the founder of Brown's department store were seemingly already engaged in the London-Chester fashion trade and there may be other links here to discover.

It is very likely Richard Browne returned from London to Chester following the death of his elder brother, Thomas Browne of Upton, who died in Munster (Ireland) in 1643. His sister-in-law (Grissell) had died in June 1641 (while giving birth to son Richard, who died in November of the same year) and his nephews, with the exception of one minor (Thomas b. circa 1639) had all pre-deceased his brother. Whether Thomas Browne who died in 1643 had any involvement with the ongoing war in Ireland is unknown but there was a minor battle at Cloughleagh (4 June 1643) involving Royalist troops from Munster.

A look at the amcestral tree of the Browne's of Upton shows that the direct male line was reduced to a single member in and shortly after the time of Richard Brown. While the surviving nephew Thomas (b. 1639) would survive and marry Cicely Glegge, they would only have a single daughter at whose birth (March 1662) Cicely Glegge would herself perish.

Brown(e) of Upton Family Tree

 * Thomas Browne of Upton = Alice Whitley of Shotton
 * *Thomas Browne = Katherine Harvey
 * *Thomas Browne (b. 1540 - d. 1578) = Eizabeth Birkenhead (d. 1602) - last common ancestors of the Browns of Chester and Sir Thomas Browne
 * *Richard Browne (d. Jan 1625) = (1) Francis Beverley (no issue) = (2) Mary (d. 1668) (daughter to Sir Thomas Aston see:Civil War and Brereton - she later married Jaques Arnodio - "a Frenchman")
 * *Thomas Browne (d. 1643 in Munster (Ireland)) = Grissell (d. 1641)
 * *Thomas Browne (bapt. 1639 - d. 1702) = Cicely Gleggge of Gayton (bapt. 1624 - d. 1661)
 * *Cicely Browne (b. 1661 - d. 1702)
 * *Robert Browne (bapt. 1640 - d.1664)
 * *Francis (b. 1640, died young)
 * *Richard (b. 1641, died young)
 * *Mary (b. 1632) = Thomas Critchley
 * (had issue..)
 * *Judith (b. 1634} = Thomas Kelsall
 * *Grissell (b. 1635) = (1) John Leacher = (2) Owen Sanderson
 * *Dorothy (b. 1636) = Thomas Shepherd

(other children of Richard Browne and Mary)
 * *Richard Brown (bapt 1627; later moved to London) - estates sequestered in 1646 = Susan Cole (of St Albans)
 * (had issue..)

(other children of Thomas Browne and Elizabeth)
 * *Jane Brown = Richard Hartley
 * (had issue..)
 * *Henry
 * *Richard
 * *Thomas (d. 1613) = Anne Garraway
 * *Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) = Dorothy Mileham (1621-1685)
 * *Edward
 * Anne = John Palmer
 * Jane = Thomas Price (1599-1685) - translated to the archbishopric of Cashel on 20 May 1667
 * Mary = Nevill Craddock
 * *Anne
 * *Edward
 * *William
 * *Ferndinando
 * *Hugh
 * *Francis

Early Years
Sir Thomas Browne was born in 1605, the third year of James I and just a few years before the publication of "Novum Organum" by Francis Bacon. The title of Bacon's work is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism and sets the scene for science to develop various methodologies, because he made the case against older Aristotelian approaches to science, arguing that method was needed because of the natural biases and weaknesses of the human mind, including the natural bias it has to seek metaphysical explanations which are not based on real observations. As will be seen, Browne did not entirely abandon the superstitions of earlier days: the believed in astrology and gave evidence before at least one witch trial. However he stands on the cusp of the "age of reason" when "free rational inquiry" superceeded religion and other forms of dogma.

Browne’s father, Thomas, had come in early manhood from Chester to London, where he was a mercer, or silk merchant. According to the most prevalent version, here he married Anne Garroway of Acton, Middlesex and they lived in comfortable circumstances with their son and four daughters. However that is not the only version. In the "Pedigree of Sir Thomas Browne" (see link below) a different version is given:


 * "The mother of Sir Thomas Browne was Anne, daughter of Powle Garraway of Lewes. She was married to Thomas Browne, mercer, of the parish of St. Michael-le-Querne, Cheapside, before 1605, in which year Sir Thomas was born. He was the youngest of four children — two sons and two daughters."

Browne himself does not help matters

Education
The senior Browne died when his son was eight years old, but apparently left sufficient means for his education. Accordingly, the boy was sent to Winchester College in 1615. William of Wykeham’s famous school (set up to educate "poor" sons of the lower gentry) was Anglican and Royalist, and provided a sound classical education that was a good foundation for the erudition acquired by Browne in later years. He remained at Winchester for eight years, until, in 1623, he proceeded to Oxford. He matriculated at Broadgates Hall, which soon afterward was upgraded to become Pembroke College. Browne, although only a freshman, was called upon (August 1624) to deliver a Latin oration at the inauguration ceremony.

Winchester would have afforded the boy little or no opportunity for study of the natural sciences (until the 1860s the predominant subject of instruction for Wykamites was classics), so it was probably during the school holidays that he began to acquire his knowledge of natural history.

At Oxford a chair of anatomy was just being established (the Chair of the Tomlins Readership in Anatomy was founded 1624) in addition to several other chairs of physical sciences. Browne’s teachers included Dr. Clayton, an anatomist and Regius professor of medicine, and Dr. Thomas Lushington, a mathematician and clergyman (and so fond of a drink that he eventually became the original "lush"). Clayton’s influence directed Browne’s attention to the study of medicine and human anatomy, but this could not begin seriously until he had taken his M.A. in philosophy in 1629.

Travels
He then left Oxford and spent some weeks in Ireland with his stepfather, Sir Thomas Dutton, before proceeding to Montpellier for full training in medicine.

It is not known how long Browne remained in France, but his travels in several European countries cannot have occupied less than four years. He probably spent some time in Padua, but his final goal was Leiden, where he defended his thesis and received his M.D. in December 1633. During these travels he studied many subjects besides medicine, absorbing information of all kinds and acquiring knowledge of several modern languages.

Apprentice
English regulations required a medical man with a foreign degree to practice for four years with an established doctor before being allowed to have his M.D. by incorporation at Oxford or Cambridge. It is probable that Browne spent these years of apprenticeship somewhere in Oxfordshire, but no details are known. He took his M.D. at Oxford on 10 July 1637 and was then, at the age of thirty-two, free to practice anywhere that he chose. It was during these four years that Browne wrote his most famous book, Religio medici, which was not published until 1642. Influenced, it is believed, by his former tutor at Oxford Dr. Lushington (who was the Rector of Burnham Westgate in Norfolk), Browne moved in 1637 to the East Anglia city of Norwich and established himself there as a physician.

Married Life
In 1641 he married Dorothy Mileham, from a neighboring village. They had twelve children, only four of whom survived their parents. Keynes writes of Browne's life at this time:


 * "It is not known where they lived from 1643 to 1650, but it is certain that at this last date they were resident in the parish of St. Peter Mancroft in a large house at the south end of the Market Place facing the Haymarket, the side forming part of Orford Place. This fine house with its moulded ceilings and oak panelling was destroyed in 1845, the only remaining relic being th emagnificent carved-oak fireplace and overmantel with great onyx bosses in panels on either side. This object,now preserved in the Castle Museum, suggests a fairly sumptuous mode of life, and we may be sure that Browne enjoyed the rewards of a large private practice, no doubt conducted mostly on horseback, but perhaps going by coach for the longer journeys."

Edward, the eldest son, became a well-known physician in London and was president of the College of Physicians in 1704.

Browne was knighted in 1671 by King Charles II, who was visiting Norwich and wished to honor its most distinguished citizen. The courtier John Evelyn, who had occasionally corresponded with Browne, took good use of the royal visit to call upon "the learned doctor" of European fame and wrote of his visit, "His whole house and garden is a paradise and Cabinet of rarities and that of the best collection, amongst Medails, books, Plants, natural things". At the same time or shortly thereafter, Charles visited Browne's home. A banquet was held in St Andrew's Hall for the royal visit. Obliged to honour a notable local, the name of the Mayor of Norwich was proposed to the King for knighthood. The Mayor, however, declined the honour and proposed Browne's name instead.

Works
Browne’s Religio medici describes the religion and philosophy of a tolerant, humorous, and latitudinarian mind. He did not, however, expose in it much of his attitude toward the rapidly expanding world of science. Yet throughout his apprenticeship and first years in Norwich he must have been reading widely in travel, philosophy, medicine, and science, and compiling the notebooks from which he quarried his next, very long book, Pseudodoxia epidemica: or, Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents, And Commonly Presumed Truths (1646). In this he sought to dispel popular ignorance about many matters in history, folklore, philology, science, medicine, natural history, and embryology. He was, thus, to be designated an “enquirer after truth” rather than a “scientist” (a term not yet invented), his field of inquiry being as wide as all human knowledge. He accepted the authority of William Harvey, one of the first great experimental scientists, and told a young correspondent: “Be sure you make yourself master of Dr. Harvey’s piece, De circulatione sanguinis, which discovery I prefer to that of Columbus.” Browne conducted many experiments in physics, electricity (a word of his own coining), biology, and comparative anatomy, dissecting animals, birds, fishes, reptiles, worms, and insects. He became an acknowledged authority on the plants, animals, birds, and fishes of East Anglia. Many of his experiments are mentioned in his Pseudodoxia epidemica and his letters. Others, such as investigations of bubbles, and of coagulation, freezing, and other properties of matter remained in the privacy of his notebooks.

Throughout his active life Browne lived on the fringe of the scientific world. His profession was medicine; his hobbies were science and natural history. He was an earnest amateur and never, as far as is known, left Norfolk for London. He was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians, but was never a fellow of the Royal Society of London, nor did he betray any desire for this kind of recognition. His elaborate and highly latinized prose style was very different from the much more austere style deliberately adopted by the fellows of the Royal Society. He was content to correspond with various fellows, such as Henry Oldenburg (secretary of the Society), John Ray, Christopher Merrett, and the diarist John Evelyn, and occasionally to send communications through his son Edward.

He was deeply interested in archaeology; one of his most famous books was Hydriotaphia, or, Urneburiall (1658), occasioned by the discovery of some supposed Roman (really Saxon) burial urns near Norwich. He corresponded with other eminent antiquaries, such as Sir William Dugdale, Elias Ashmole, and John Aubrey. With these manifold interests and occupations, it is not surprising that Browne is remembered as a learned man and a literary artist rather than for any important contributions to contemporary science. His qualities served to foster a general interest in science and, above all, to illuminate thought by truth concerning the material world.

Legacy
Sir Thomas Browne had forty children and grand-children, yet within twenty-eight years of his decease the male line had become extinct; and of the third generation, none survived their infancy, excepting in the family of his second daughter, Anne, of whose eight children none left any descendants, except the third daughter, Frances Fairfax, who had married the Earl of Buchan.

Browne appears at No. 69 in the Oxford English Dictionary's list of top cited sources. He has 775 entries in the OED of first usage of a word, is quoted in a total of 4131 entries of first evidence of a word, and is quoted 1596 times as first evidence of a particular meaning of a word. Examples of his coinages, many of which are of a scientific or medical nature, include 'ambidextrous', 'antediluvian', 'analogous', 'approximate', 'ascetic', 'anomalous', 'carnivorous', 'coexistence', 'coma', 'compensate', 'computer', 'cryptography', 'cylindrical', 'disruption','ergotisms', 'electricity', 'exhaustion', 'ferocious', 'follicle', 'generator', 'gymnastic', 'hallucination', 'herbaceous', 'holocaust', 'insecurity', 'indigenous', 'jocularity', 'literary', 'locomotion', 'medical', 'migrant', 'mucous', 'prairie', 'prostate', 'polarity', 'precocious', 'pubescent', 'therapeutic', 'suicide', 'ulterior', 'ultimate' and 'veterinarian'.

Related Articles

 * Upton;

Sources and Links

 * Earwaker, 'History of the Church and Parish of St. Mary-on-the-Hill, Chester,' completed by Dr. R. H. Morris, 1898;
 * Gleggs of Wirral;
 * Barbour, "Sir Thomas Browne, A life";
 * The pedigree of Sir Thomas Browne by Williams, Charles, 1827-1907;
 * Calalog of English Literary Manuscripts 1450-1700 Sir Thomas Brown;
 * Sir Geoffrey Keynes on Browne;