James Clifton Brown

He was the second son of Alexander Brown and his wife Sarah Benedict Brown, daughter of James Brown.[3] His elder brother was Sir William Richmond Brown, 2nd Baronet, the High Sheriff of Northamptonshire, and his younger brother was the Liberal politician Sir Alexander Brown, 1st Baronet. His paternal grandfather was the banker and merchant Sir William Brown, 1st Baronet.[4]

Brown was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated with a Master of Arts.[5]

He was elected to the House of Commons at a by-election in 1876 for Horsham in Sussex, and held the seat until his defeat at the 1880 general election.[1][2]

Brown served as lieutenant-colonel of the 1st Lancashire Royal Garrison Artillery[3] and on his retirement in 1884, was granted the rank of an honorary colonel of the 2nd Brigade, Lancashire Division.[6] He was a Justice of the Peace[4] and in 1888, he was appointed High Sheriff of Sussex.[3]

On 21 March 1866, he married Amelia Rowe, daughter of Charles Rowe and Sarah Amelia Pfeiffer.[7] His father-in-law Charles Rowe (1819–1876) was born in Jamaica and was of mixed race, an Octoroon in the parlance of the time, as the son of planter Charles Rowe, Sr. and his 28-years younger mistress Mary Gauntlett (b. 1782), "a free Quadroon" who owned slaves herself. Mary Gauntlett was born out of wedlock to Elizabeth Roche (De La Roche, Delaroche; 1761–1812), a half black woman described in 1795 as "a free mulatto", and Lieutenant William Gauntlett; Elizabeth Roche was the daughter of Mary, "a freed Negro" born around 1740, and white planter John De La Roche. His mother-in-law was born in Lima, Peru in 1825 to Friedrich (Frederick) Pfeiffer, an Hanoverian-born flour merchant, and his Quakeress wife who left her sect to join her husband's faith; the Pfeiffers moved to Lima in 1821.[8][9] James Clifton Brown and Amelia had ten children, four daughters and six sons, including:[7]

• Elsie Clifton Brown (1861–1958), who married Sir Evelyn Ridley Bradford, 2nd Bt
• Brigadier General Howard Clifton Brown (1868–1946), who represented the same constituency as his father as a member of parliament.[1]
• Lieutenant-colonel Douglas Clifton Brown (1879–1958), who served as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1943 to 1951 and was elevated to the Peerage of the United Kingdom as the Viscount Ruffside in 1951.[10]
• Vice Admiral Francis Clifton Brown (1874–1963)
• Mildred Clifton Brown (1876–1949), married Charles George Ashburner Nix, of Tilgate House in Crawley

Brown died on 5 January 1917.

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by James Clifton-Brown