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-Catholic merchant father and a half-caste Catholic 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 (arriving there in Feb 1819) where their parents were then living. 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."

First Time In New South Wales, 1819-1822
In 1819 Richard Henry Browne and his brother John William Browne both sailed into Sydney in their late teens to be able to help their father in his business interests. These included their father's new pastoral interests, and his business trading as a merchant in both Calcutta and Sydney. Their father had immigrated to Sydney to live in 1816 on his ship the "Mary", and had brought their mother there to live in 1818. His father's business required frequent commuting between Sydney and Calcutta, and explains why the 2 teenagers were left in charge of the Macquarie Place merchant business in April 1819, just 2 months after they arrived.

In these early years in New South Wales Richard Henry Browne and his brother were unsure of whether they wanted to settle permanently in the Colony. As a result on 1 Jul 1820 their father wrote to the Governor requesting a grant of land for each of his two boys to induce themn to settle in New South Wales. With no land forthcoming, Richard Henry Browne continued to help his father with his business interests, especially his father's merchant business based in Macquarie Place, Sydney. This entailed his commutting to Calcutta, evidenced by a notice in the newspaper of 4 Nov 1820 stating "MR. R. H. BROWNE proceeding to Bengal (Calcutta) by an early Opportunity, requests Claims, to be presented at the Office of Mr. W. Browne, Macquarie-place."

Before Mar 1822 Richard Henry Browne was back in Sydney. Whilst in Calcutta he had looked for business interests of his own, and arranged to become an agent for the sale of cargos in Sydney. Earlier in 1822 his father had sold his merchant business in Macquarie Place to fellow merchant Thomas Icely (1797–1874). In Mar 1822 Richard Henry Browne was working with Mr Icely as an agent for the sale of cargos from Calcutta for other businesses. In this capacity, as an agent for the sale of cargos from Calcutta for other businesses, Richard Henry Browne sold some goods to the Government, which, on 1 Apr 1822 paid a bill on the treasury of £415, 8s to Richard Henry Browne Having sold these goods Richard Henry Browne was planning to sail back to Calcutta, evidenced by a notices in the newspaper, the first on 3 May and the last on 7 Jun 1822, that stated "Mr. Richard Henry Browne, proceeding to Calcutta, requests Claims to be presented at Macquarie-place." . He took work at Calcutta with the merchant firm Sheddon & Co. He was not to return to New South Wales until 1824.

Richard Henry Browne's times in Calcutta during the period 1820 to 1824 allowed him to later describe himself in the 1881 Scotland census for Lasswade, MidLothian, as a "former East Indies merchant" (East Indies being the term popularly applied to India).

1824-1836
In 1824 Richard Henry Browne decided to leave Calcutta and settle in New South Wales. After arriving in Sydney in Apr 1824 on the "Perseverence", he wrote to the Governor on 28 May stating that he had recently arrived from India with the intention to settle, and asking for a land grant. This resulted in the promise of a grant of 640 acres. He was granted 600 acres at Illawarra at a quit rent of £4, 10s per annum starting 1st January 1831 on 4 Jun 1824, in the district where his father had been granted 3800 acres in 1823 to add to the land he already held of Appin.

Richard Henry Browne's route from Calcutta to Sydney on the "Perserverance" in 1824 was a common one in its day, and can be partly traced through notices in newspapers. The "Perseverence" travelled from Calcutta, possibly to Madras, and then on to Mauritius. It is from Mauritius that the newspapers begin to record its journey. After Mauritius the ship "was compelled to put into Hobart Town, in want of water and provisions", in early April 1824 , and finally sailed on to Sydney in late April 1824 , with "Mr. R.H. Browne" among the passengers "from the Mauritius".

600 acres of land at Illawarra was not enough land on which to make a living grazing sheep and cattle. Richard Henry Browne therefore formed a pastural partnership with his paternal cousin Henry O'Brien (1793-1866), who in 1821 had received 3 convict labourers and 600 acres on the Bathurst plains. In this capacity they began to receive convict labourers, some examples of which follow:


 * In Jun 1824 Martin Graham from the "Isabella" (1818) was assigned to "Messrs H O'Brien and R H Browne, Illawarra", 1 of 12 convicts assigned to the district of Appin and distributed by his father W. Browne J.P. of Appin, who also assigned 1 of the 12 convicts to himself . It was not uncommon for his father William Browne to assign convicts to himself, as in the previous month, April 1824, he had assigned to himself 1 of the 7 convicts available for the district of Appin in April who also happened to be a blacksmith.


 * In Jul 1824 Peter Coil from the "John Barry" (1821) and Henry Jackson from the "Countess of Harcourt" (1824) were assigned to "Messrs H O'Brien and R H Browne, Illawarra", 2 of 26 convicts assigned to the district of Appin and distributed by his father W. Browne J.P. of Appin, who also after returning a convict making him 1 of the 26 available for assignment in that month, and had then assigned a different convict to himself.


 * In Nov 1824 Peter Kelly from the "Dorothy" (1820) and William Watts from the "Guildford" (1824) were returned by "Messrs H O'Brien and R H Browne", 2 of 4 convicts returned in the district of Appin and redistributed by his father W. Browne J.P. of Appin.

The pasturage of animals at Bathurst also needed their attendance. Richard Henry Browne and his cousin Henry O'Brien therefore contacted the Government to request the use of more land (squatting) on which to pasture their animals. "Mssrs H O'Brien & R H Browne of Bathurst having made application for a Certificate to procur a Ticket of Occupation for the depasturage of 236 head of Horned Cattle...and 2640 Sheep...in the charge of the abovementioned Men, and others as Stockmen and Shepherds (Viz) William Burke and Matthew Flinn, Ticket of Leave Men". On 19 Oct 1824 they were to be certified to use a "spot of ground, name unknown" about 45 miles SSE from Bathurst, bounded on the South by a river. This was communicated by letter on 5 Nov 1824 to R. Hy Browne, Bathurst. Richard Henry Browne was to be allowed temporary occupation of 4 square miles (2560 acres) at that exact described location. William Burke and Matthew Flinn were again mentioned. His cousin Henry O'Brien was not mentioned but it was understood by both the Government and Richard Henry Browne that the use of the land was for both himself and his cousin.

At this point in his life story Richard Henry Browne had become a prime example of the high level of mobility of persons within Australia (by land), around Australian (by sea), and around the world (by sea). At this point in his life story Richard Henry Browne had also become a prime example of the similtaneous identification of the same person by 2 or more different locations where they owned or controlled land. In 1824, as can be seen from the above, he was known similtaneously as R.H.Browne, Illawarra; and R.H.Browne, Bathurst. Later, in 1837/38, he was to become known similtaneously as R.H.Browne, Sydney; R.H.Browne, Yass; and R.H.Browne, Brackenbury. Then later, in 1840, he was to become known similtaneously as R.H.Browne, Melbourne; R.H.Browne, Geelong; and R.H.Browne, Heidelberg.

In 1826 Richard Henry Browne still had pastoral interests in the Bathurst district, as on 1st Feb R.H.Browne was made a member of the Bathurst Literary Society "at a Meeting of the Gentlemen of Bathurst". By 1832, however, he was based back in Sydney, while his cousin Henry O'Brien had moved his pastoral business to the Yass district. In Jul 1832 R.H.Brown(sic), Sydney, had a convict labourer, David Hughes, assigned to him. He then travelled to London for a period.

1837-1838
R.H.Brown(sic) left London on the "Royal George" on 20 Oct 1836 and landed back in Sydney on 13 Mar 1837 with imported goods to sell. Then on 1 Jul 1837, R.H.Browne was appointed as Sydney agent for the newly formed Australian Association of Bengal at its first meeting in Calcutta. He resigned this position soon after, and was no longer their agent by 30 Mar 1838 when the "Gaillardon", the first ship chartered by the Australian Association of Bengal, arrived at Sydney. The reason given for his earlier resignation was discussed at a Meeting in Calcutta of the Australian Association of Bengal on 2 Jul 1838, where it was stated: "Our agency at Sydney was addressed in the first instance to Mr. R. H. Browne, late of the firm of Sheddon and Co. of this place; but as that gentleman had no settled purpose of remaining in the colony, or at any rate residing at Sydney, our affairs passed into the hands of Messrs. Campbell and Co., of George-street, as provided for in our instructions."

After arriving back in Sydney in Mar 1837 Richard Henry Browne visited his cousin Henry O'Brien at Henry's town residence in Upper Pitt Street, Sydney. As a result he resuming his pastoral interests, this time on the Yass plains where his cousin Henry O'Brien, and now also his cousin Cornelius O'Brien (1796-1869), had their stations. Richard Henry Browne took up a depasturing license on the Yass plains and called it Brackenbury. In Dec 1837 R.H. Browne of Yass was made Commisioner of Crown Lands for the district. In Feb 1838 R.H. Browne, Brackenbury, was presented in Sydney to Sir George Gipps. In Mar 1838 R.H.Browne had 14 bales of wool included in a shipment to London on the "Alfred". Also prior to April 1838 R.H.Browne, Yass, signed an undertaking, together with other landholders of Yass (including his 2 O'Brien cousins), not to pay labourers in liquor.

Meanwhile he continued some trading as a merchant in Sydney. For example on 13 Dec 1837 goods that R.H.Browne had imported from London arrived in Sydney on the "Juliet", and on 21 Mar 1838 goods that R.H.Brown(sic) had imported from Canton had arrived in Hobart on the "Orwell" before being transported on to Sydney.

Then in May 1838 the seed was sown for a new chapter in his life to begin, for in the NSW Governement Gazette of 30 May 1838 was an advertisement for the sale of Government land between the Darebin Creek and the Yarra River at Melbourne. This Melbourne land was to be auctioned on Thursday 13 Sep 1838 at the George-street Market Building in Sydney.

On Thursday 13 Sep 1838 Richard Henry Browne attended the auction of Government land in Sydney and purchased 920 acres on the Yarra River for £1334 at today's Heidelberg in Melbourne. 3 nearby allotments, totalling 3130 acres were bought speculatively by Thomas Walker (1804-1886) who planned to subdivide the allotments and place them up for sale. Walker was an investor and land speculator, well-known in Sydney business circles of the day. Richard Henry Browne had been a Commissioner of Crown Lands at Yass for less than 12 months, but this experience stood him in good stead, and arrangements were subsequently made for him to move to Melbourne and act as the land agent to sell Walker's blocks.

Heidelberg
10 blocks of land between the Darebin Creek and the Yarra River were put up for auction sale by the Government on 13 Sep 1838. The blocks were sold to the following purchasers: Thomas Walker (1804-1886) purchased adjacent portions 1, 2 & 3 totalling 3130 acres, adjoining and west & south of the village reserve, which he planned to subdivide for resale; George Isaac Porter (1800-1848) purchased non-adjacent portions 4 & 7 totalling 1570 acres, on which he settled; Richard Henry Browne purchased portion 6 totalling 920 acres, east of the village reserve with a very small section adjoining); Thomas Wills (1800-1872) purchased portion 8 totalling 970 acres; Neil Campbell purchased portion 10 totalling 1035 acres; and Captain Sylvester John Brown (c1790-1864) purchased portions 11 & 12 totalling 1876 acres. Not included in the sale of 13 Sep 1838 was 2 portions without water access, and the village reserve that at that time was known as Warringal, and did not begin to be sold until 1845.

The block of 920 acres that Browne purchased at the auction was described as follows: "BOURKE, Portion No. 6, 920, Nine hundred and twenty acres, more or less, parish of Keelbundoora; bounded on the west by the section line forming the east boundary of Portion No. 5, and of the Village Reserve, bearing north 140 chains; on the north by a section line forming part of the south boundary of Portion No. 8, containing 970 acres bearing east 80 chains; on the east by the section line forming the west boundary of Portion No. 7, containing 780 acres, bearing south 100 chains, and on the south by Yarra Yarra River. Price 5s. per acre", with the 5s per acre being a reserve price. The rpice that Browne paid of £1334 eqauted to £1, 5s per acre.

An imaginative description of the land sale of 13 Sep 1838 in Sydney was given in a 21 Feb 1840 advertisement for the sale of one of the landlocked blocks, portion 5, that had not been put up for auction sale on 13 Sep 1838. (The 2 portions without water access, the 2 landlocked portions, were not included in the sale of 13 Sep 1838 but were both sold later. Portion 5, 960 acres, was sold to James Watson and portion 9 was sold to Neil McLean. The description read as follows: "The competition for this Estate at the last Government Sale was the greatest that ever occured in the sale of Crown Lands, and the silence which reigned amongst the assembled crowd while the most intelligent entered the lists to become possessed of it was truly characteristic and the moment the purchaser was declared, he received the congratulations of his friends."

It is not difficult to understand why Richard Henry Browne would have been interested in purchasing some of the land between the Darebin Creek and the Yarra River at today's Heidelberg, as one of his cousin Henry O'Brien's acquaintences at Jugiong, near Yass, was Joseph Hawdon (1813–1871). Hawdon, late in 1836, was one of three men who had driven a herd of cattle through the Darebin Creek area when they overlanded the cattle from Jugiong on the Murrumbidgee to Melbourne. Hawdon was to settle in Victoria but still travelled extensively. In 1838 Hawdon even secured a contract at £1200 a year to carry the overland mail fortnightly between Melbourne and Yass, whence it was transfered to the mailman from Sydney, though he did not convey the mail himself instead using an employee. In late 1836, while driving the herd of cattle from Jugiong to Melbourne, Hawdon had seen that the area of land between the Darebin Creek and the Yarra River was prime agricultural and grazing land. Ironically Browne was later to sell a large portion of his 920 acres to Joseph Hawdon, land on which Hawdon was to take up residence and build his Elizabethan-Gothic revival style mansion that he named ‘Banyule’.

The first thing that Browne did with the 920 acres of land that he purchased on 13 Sep 1838 was to have the block subdivided. He decided to apply to have his block subdivided into 4 portions, and by 31 January 1839 the subdivision of the land that he had purchased had been finalised. In Dec 1839 he sold the easternmost 192 acre portion to James Williamson (1816-1897), which Williamson named "Viewbank", and on which Williamson built a "genteel residence", a weatherboard home. According to the research of Sarah Hayes in her 2014 book "Good taste, fashion, luxury: a genteel Melbourne family and their rubbish", Williamson got into financial difficulty which resulted in this 192 acres being put up for sale in Oct 1842. Her research is that Browne firstly brought the property back, and then 2 years later, in Aug 1844, sold the property again. This is close to the time that Browne moved to Hobart.

Browne, initially at least, keep ownership of the other 3 portions totalling 728 acres, established a residence there. These were the 3 portions that Beowne was later to sell to Joseph Hawdon. In her book Sarah Hayes discusses an advertisement of 5 Oct 1839 which happens to be for the sale of 25 lots of 40 to 60 acres of land (approx 1250 acres) without realising that this land for sale was part of the 3130 acres of land that had been initially been purchased by Thomas Walker for subdivision and resale. The advertisement describes the land for sale as "adjacent to the highly improved Estate of Joseph Hawdon, Esq". She then goes on to discuss Joseph Hawdon's Banyule Homestead that was completed in 1846. What she misses is that the advertisement is referring to Joseph Hawdon's first purchase of land, being 363 acres north of Sylvester Brown's ‘Hartlands’ and south of the village reserve, and also part of the 3130 acres of land that had been initially been purchased by Thomas Walker for subdivision and resale,. It was not until sometime later that Hawdon purchased the land from Browne on which he built his Banyule Homestead. Sarah Browne then contradictorily goes on to discuss a second advertisement of 7 Mar 1840 as an advertisement of the sale of Richard Henry Browne's 920 acre subdivided into 4 lots estate, without noticing that the advertisement is for 100 acres in 10 acre blocks and is another section of the 3130 acres of land that had been initially been purchased by Thomas Walker for subdivision and resale.