Thomas Brown (minister and natural historian) explained

Thomas Brown (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

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.

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^[1] in succession to Rev John Laird.^[2]

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.^[3]

Edinburgh University honoured him with a Doctor of Divinity in 1880.

He died at home, 16 Carlton Street^[4] in Edinburgh on 4 April 1893.^[5]

Family

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.

Publications

See^{[6] [7] [5]}

• 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.)

Bibliography

• Obituary Notice by Prof. Duns, D.D., in Hist. Berwickshire Nat. Club (1892-3), 339-46
• The Border Almanac (1894), 76–8.

References

Sources

• Book: Brown. Thomas. Thomas Brown (minister). Church and state in Scotland: a narrative of the struggle for independence from 1560-1843. 1892. Macniven & Wallace. Edinburgh.
• Book: Brown. Thomas. Thomas Brown (minister). Annals of the disruption with extracts from the narratives of ministers who left the Scottish establishment in 1843 by Thomas Brown.. 1893. Macniven & Wallace. Edinburgh.
• Duns . Prof. . 1934 . Obituary notice of Rev. Thomas Brown . Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . 20 . xxix-xxxv.
• Book: Scott, Hew . Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae; the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation . 1925 . Oliver and Boyd . Edinburgh . 474-475. 5 . Hew Scott.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Former Fellows of The Royal Society of Edinburgh - 1783 – 2002. The Royal Society of Edinburgh . July 2006 . 25 January 2017.
2. Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church
3. List of the Ordinary Fellows of the Society. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 1 January 1870. 26. 1. xi–xiii. 26 January 2017. Cambridge Core. 10.1017/S008045680002648X. 251579034 .
4. Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1893
5. Book: Desmond, Ray. Dictionary Of British And Irish Botanists And Horticulturists Including plant collectors, flower painters and garden designers. 25 February 1994. CRC Press. 9780850668438. 26 January 2017. Google Books.
6. Web site: Browse authors with titles: Brown, Thomas, 1811-1893 - The Online Books Page. 26 January 2017.
7. Web site: Brown, Thomas, 1811-1893 - The Online Books Page. 26 January 2017.