Thomas Brown (minister and natural historian)
Thomas Brown FRSE (1811–1893) was a Scottish minister in the Free Church of Scotland who rose to its highest rank, Moderator of the General Assembly in 1890. He was a noted geologist and botanist. He wrote prolifically on the history of the Disruption of 1843.
Life edit
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He was born on 23 April 1811 in the manse at Langton, Berwickshire in south-east Scotland, the son of John Brown, minister of that parish.[1]
He trained in theology at Edinburgh University and began working as a minister in 1837 at Kinneff in Aberdeenshire. He left the Church of Scotland at the point of the Disruption of 1843. He spent some years without a ministry before being placed in the relatively prestigious Dean Free Church on Belford Road in north-west Edinburgh in 1849. He remained in the Free Church of Scotland for the rest of his life, serving as its Moderator for 1890/91 and the age of 79[2] in succession to Rev John Laird.[3]
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1861. His address was then listed as 16 Carlton Street in Stockbridge, Edinburgh.[4]
Edinburgh University honoured him with a Doctor of Divinity in 1880.
He died at home, 16 Carlton Street[5] in Edinburgh on 4 April 1893.[6]
Family edit
He married 27 April 1848, Marianne (born 30 November 1814, died 9 December 1856 and whose brother was Alexander Wood), daughter of James Wood, M.D., Edinburgh, and Mary Wood of Grangehill, and had issue —
- John James Graham, M.D., President, Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, Lecturer on Neurology in University of Edinburgh, born 6 September 1853; died 1925
- Mary Eleanor Lucy, died in infancy
- James Wood, M.A., minister of the Free Church, Gordon, Berwickshire, author of Covenanters of the Merse, and other works, born 2 December 1856, died at Florence 16 March 1914.[1]
Publications edit
- Botany of Langton – part of the New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1834
- A Sketch of the Life and Work of Alexander Wood MD FRCP (1886)
- Commentary on the Gospels (1854)
- Church and State in Scotland, 1560 to 1843 (1891)
- Annals of the Disruption (1893)
- A History of Berwickshire Natuaralists' Club (proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1893)
- Annals of the Disruption (Edinburgh, 1876, 1884, 1893)
- Church and State in Scotland from 1560 to 1843 [Chalmers Lecture] (Edinburgh, 1891)
- "The Game of Ball as played in Dunse on Fastern's Eve" (A History of Berwickshire Natuaralists' Club, vol. i., 44–6)
- "Notes on the Mountain Limestone and Lower Carboniferous Rocks of the Fifeshire Coast, from Burntisland to St Andrews" (Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxii.)
- "On a Clay Deposit . . . recently observed in the Basin of the Forth" (Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin.)
- "Notice of Glacial Clay near Errol"
- "On the Parallel Roads of Glenroy "
- " On the Old River Terraces of the Earn and Teith" (Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., xxvi.)
- "Address to Berwickshire Nat. Club, 12th Oct. 1881 " (A History of Berwickshire Natuaralists' Club, ix., 415–24)
- Account of the Parish (New Statistical Account, xi.)[1]
Bibliography edit
- Obituary Notice by Prof. Duns, D.D., in Hist. Berwickshire Nat. Club (1892-3), 339-46
- The Border Almanac (1894), 76–8.
References edit
Citations edit
- ^ a b c Scott 1925.
- ^ "Former Fellows of The Royal Society of Edinburgh - 1783 – 2002" (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
- ^ Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church
- ^ "List of the Ordinary Fellows of the Society". Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 26 (1): xi–xiii. 1 January 1870. doi:10.1017/S008045680002648X. S2CID 251579034. Retrieved 26 January 2017 – via Cambridge Core.
- ^ Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1893
- ^ a b Desmond, Ray (25 February 1994). Dictionary Of British And Irish Botanists And Horticulturists Including plant collectors, flower painters and garden designers. CRC Press. ISBN 9780850668438. Retrieved 26 January 2017 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Browse authors with titles: Brown, Thomas, 1811-1893 - The Online Books Page". Retrieved 26 January 2017.
- ^ "Brown, Thomas, 1811-1893 - The Online Books Page". Retrieved 26 January 2017.
Sources edit
- Brown, Thomas (1892). Church and state in Scotland: a narrative of the struggle for independence from 1560-1843. Edinburgh: Macniven & Wallace.
- Brown, Thomas (1893). Annals of the disruption with extracts from the narratives of ministers who left the Scottish establishment in 1843 by Thomas Brown. Edinburgh: Macniven & Wallace.
- Duns, Prof. (1934). "Obituary notice of Rev. Thomas Brown". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 20: xxix-xxxv.
- Scott, Hew (1925). Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae; the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation. Vol. 5. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. pp. 474-475.