Richard Henry Browne (1802-1882)

Introduction
Richard Henry Browne died a very rich man at the age of 80 years. His estate in 1882 was worth £38,580, 3s, 5d, which according to the on-line Currency Converter at the National Archives, London was worth £1,863,808.05 in 2005.

In 1839 at the age of 37, he was to be described by Rolf Boldrewood in his book "Old Melbourne Memories," published in 1899, as a young Englishman of distinguished manner, slightly built, vivacious, soigne in dress, uniformly courteous of manner, "most refined of land agents".

A young Englishman? He may have lived out the last half of his life in the United Kingdom, moving to London at the age of 45 in 1848, and dying near Edinburgh at the age of 80 in 1882, but he had not been born there. He had been born in India of an Irish merchant father and a half-caste Anglo-Indian mother. He had family in the United Kingdom but his father's business during the years of his childhood was based in Calcutta where his parents and sisters lived, and where he and his brother spent their early childhood. He and his elder brother, John William Browne (1801-1834), were educated, at least during their teenage years, in England, turning them both into "young Englishman of distinguished manner". Together in Oct 1818, at the ages of 16 & 17 respectively, and after completing their educations, they left London on the "Harriet" for Sydney where their parents were then living (arriving there in Feb 1819). This was only, however, after also completing a post-education "grand Continental tour" of Europe.

This "grand Continental tour" of Europe was to have a life-long influence on Richard Henry Browne. When he was selling land on the outskirts of Melbourne in 1839 he was known as "Continental" Browne. This was because he was very fond of retailing incidents of his "grand Continental tour", hence his nickname.

It is as a direct result of his time in Europe on his "grand Continental tour" that Heidelberg in Melbourne was named. The area had been known by the aboriginal name of Warringal, but in 1839 when Richard Henry Browne was there selling land, on his own behalf and as an agent for others, he renamed it Heidelberg, after Heidelberg on the Neckar River in Germany. Using his imagination Boldrewood wrote, "I can see him now in the centre of a group of admiring friends, chiefly of the fair sex, standing on one of the heights which overlooked the meadows of the Yarra. 'There, my dear madam, permit me to direct your gaze. Do you not observe the silver thread of the river winding through that exquisite green valley ? it reminds me so vividly of the gliding Neckar, and alas ! (here a most telling sigh) of scenes, of friends loved and lost. I can fancy that I look at my ever-remembered, ever-regretted Heidelberg ! Those slopes rising from the farther river shore will be terraced vineyards; and these, where you can faintly discern the snow pinnacle on yon spur of the Australian Alps, I can imagine the grand outline of the Harz Mountains. It is, it shall be, Heidelberg ! Charles, open more champagne. We must christen this thrice-favored spot, on this trebly auspicious day, worthily, irrevocably!" "In some such fashion," Boldrewood added, "Heidelberg was named, and, what was more to the purpose, sold."