Thomas Brown (minister)
The Very Rev Dr Thomas Brown DD 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
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He was born on 23 April 1811 in the manse at Langton, Berwickshire in south-east Scotland, the son of the Rev Dr John Brown DD, 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 Mary Ann Wood, sister of physician Alexander Wood, in 1848. Their children included the physician and neurologist, John James Graham Brown (1853–1925).
Publications
- 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 Nationalist Club (proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1893)
References
- "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. Retrieved 26 January 2017 – via Cambridge Core.
- Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1893
- 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.