![Badger church - Isaac Hawkins Browne 02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Badger_church_-_Isaac_Hawkins_Browne_02.jpg)
Isaac Hawkins Browne,
FRS (7 December 1745 – 30 May 1818) was a British
Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
politician,
industrialist, essayist, and a
lord of the manor
Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...
of
Badger, Shropshire
Badger is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England, about six miles north-east of Bridgnorth. The parish had a population of 134 according to the 2001 census, falling to 126 at the 2011 census.
Badger Parish is at grid map reference ...
.
Family and education
He was the only son of the poet
Isaac Hawkins Browne (1705–1760) and his wife, Jane, née Trimnell. He was educated at
Westminster School
(God Gives the Increase)
, established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560
, type = Public school Independent day and boarding school
, religion = Church of England
, head_label = Hea ...
and
Hertford College, Oxford
Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main gate to the Bodleian Library. The col ...
, and was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...
in July 1770.
Employer and squire
![Badger church - Isaac Hawkins Browne 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Badger_church_-_Isaac_Hawkins_Browne_01.jpg)
In 1774, Browne bought the manor of
Badger
Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the family Mustelidae (which also includes the otters, wolverines, martens, minks, polecats, weasels, and ferrets). Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by ...
from its absentee owner, Clement Kynnersley of Loxley, near
Uttoxeter
Uttoxeter ( , ) is a market town in the East Staffordshire district in the county of Staffordshire, England. It is near to the Derbyshire county border. It is situated from Burton upon Trent, from Stafford, from Stoke-on-Trent, from De ...
: the house was at that time rented to an ironmaster, William Ferriday. He also owned property at
Malinslee
Malinslee is an estate in the town of Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England. It is near the Town Park and Telford Shopping Centre, and next to the Dawley area.
History
Malinslee was formerly served by the Coalport branch line which ran fro ...
in
Dawley
Dawley ( ) is a constituent town and civil parish in Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire, England. It was originally, in 1963, going to be the main centre of the 'Dawley New Town' plan before it was decided in 1968 to name the new town as 'Telford ...
, Shropshire, now part of the town of
Telford
Telford () is a town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, about east of Shrewsbury, south west of Stafford, north west of Wolverhampton and from Birmingham in t ...
, which included Old Park. In 1790, he opened coal mines on his estate and leased enough land in Old Park to enable
Thomas Botfield to build the Old Park ironworks there. Ferriday and Botfield had long been business partners in the Dawley and
Madeley areas, for example in the Lightmoor Coalworks. Browne mixed and made money in the world of
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
business men, while seeking access to the world of politics dominated by the
landed gentry. Badger gave him the opportunity to create the rural lifestyle to which he aspired.
After making a
grand tour
The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tut ...
in 1775–1776, he settled on his estates at Badger. Between 1779 and 1783, Browne had Badger Hall greatly extended, to a design by
James Wyatt
James Wyatt (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to 1806.
Early life
W ...
, and commissioned paintings for it from
Robert Smirke. He also had Badger
Dingle
Dingle ( Irish: ''An Daingean'' or ''Daingean Uí Chúis'', meaning "fort of Ó Cúis") is a town in County Kerry, Ireland. The only town on the Dingle Peninsula, it sits on the Atlantic coast, about southwest of Tralee and northwest of Kill ...
reshaped into a
picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...
landscape devised by
William Emes
William Emes (1729 or 1730–13 March 1803) was an English landscape gardener.
Biography
Details of his early life are not known but in 1756 he was appointed head gardener to Sir Nathaniel Curzon at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire. He left this post ...
.
In 1784 he served as treasurer of the
Salop Infirmary in
Shrewsbury. Browne supported a
Sunday School at Malinslee from 1799, and organised the building of a church there, St. Leonard, consecrated in 1805 and designed by
Thomas Telford
Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE, (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scot ...
. This was intended to replace the parish church, but that was opened in 1818. It was probably he who initiated and financed one of the village schools at Badger: certainly it was said to be funded by the lord of the manor after his death, when his wife was in control. He also instituted coal allowances for the villagers.
Browne took great interest in the affairs of the parish of Badger, as he was bound to do, since he had the right to nominate the incumbent: he did not present, as the
advowson
Advowson () or patronage is the right in English law of a patron (avowee) to present to the diocesan bishop (or in some cases the ordinary if not the same person) a nominee for appointment to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living ...
strictly belonged to the Crown. Thomas Hartshorn had been rector from 1753, succeeding his father in the post. For most of that time he held two
prebends of
St. Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton
St Peter's Collegiate Church is located in central Wolverhampton, England. For many centuries it was a chapel royal and from 1480 a royal peculiar, independent of the Diocese of Lichfield and even the Province of Canterbury. The collegiate chu ...
: rural Hatherton, near
Cannock
Cannock () is a town in the Cannock Chase district in the county of Staffordshire, England. It had a population of 29,018. Cannock is not far from the nearby towns of Walsall, Burntwood, Stafford and Telford. The cities of Lichfield and Wolv ...
, and Monmore, which included the growing town of
Bilston
Bilston is a market town, ward, and civil parish located in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. It is close to the borders of Sandwell and Walsall. The nearest towns are Darlaston, Wednesbury, and Willenhall. Historically in Staffordshi ...
. At Badger, communion was celebrated only five times a year. In 1780, after the death of Hartshorn, Browne had James Chelsum, a minor scholar, installed. Two years later, Chelsum added to his benefice at Badger the rectory of
Droxford
Droxford ( Drokensford) is a village in Hampshire, England.
Geography
The village is clustered with slight ribbon development along its main, north–south, undulating road. It is entirely on the lower half of the western slopes of the Meon v ...
in Hampshire, and a chaplaincy at
Lathbury
Lathbury is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is just to the north of Newport Pagnell and just outside the Milton Keynes urban area.
History
The village name is an ...
in Buckinghamshire. He also took on numerous preaching posts, publishing his sermons. Although Browne must initially have trusted Chelsum, he clearly became disenchanted and arranged for his departure in 1795. Chelsum retained his other benefices until he died insane in 1801. Browne nominated in his place William Smith, who turned out to be an exemplary pastor, devoted solely to the parish and never absent for more than two weeks. Browne rewarded him with the valuable right to nominate his own successor.
Political career
![Badger church - Jane and Henrietta Browne](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Badger_church_-_Jane_and_Henrietta_Browne.jpg)
Browne was appointed
High Sheriff of Shropshire
This is a list of sheriffs and high sheriffs of Shropshire
The sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the high sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most of the responsibil ...
for 1783–1784.
From 1784, Browne was one of the members of Parliament for
Bridgnorth
Bridgnorth is a town in Shropshire, England. The River Severn splits it into High Town and Low Town, the upper town on the right bank and the lower on the left bank of the River Severn. The population at the 2011 Census was 12,079.
Histor ...
, a
pocket borough controlled by the Whitmores of
Apley Hall. He served for six successive parliaments, until 1812, and supported the Tory ministries of
William Pitt the younger
William Pitt the Younger (28 May 175923 January 1806) was a British statesman, the youngest and last prime minister of Great Britain (before the Acts of Union 1800) and then first prime minister of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ire ...
,
Henry Addington, the
Duke of Portland
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ranke ...
, and
Spencer Perceval
Spencer Perceval (1 November 1762 – 11 May 1812) was a British statesman and barrister who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1809 until his assassination in May 1812. Perceval is the only British prime minister to ...
. In 1803 he was named as one of the
Commissioners of Highland Roads and Bridges
The Commissioners of Highland Roads and Bridges (formally the Commissioners for Roads and Bridges in the Highlands of Scotland) was created in 1803 to take responsibility for the construction and maintenance of the long-distance roads in the Scotti ...
.
Hansard records 11 contributions by Browne to parliamentary debate, most of them fairly short, between 1805 and 1809, when his speeches cease. (Reporting of debates was patchy before this time, so it is not certain how active he was earlier in his career.) He was clearly not a striking speaker. When he made one of his longer speeches in 1806, supporting funeral honours for Pitt, he was met by loud coughing.
In 1805 Browne spoke in support of a measure to force the payment of replacement curates when incumbent priests were absent. This was an issue of which he had bitter experience, of course. On this occasion he found himself on the opposite side to many of his Tory colleagues, who considered it an attack on ecclesiastical property rights. However, Browne's support for the pastoral work of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
was accompanied by a virulent
anti-Catholicism. In 1807 a bill was introduced to allow Catholics to serve in the armed forces, a very small initial modification to the
Penal Laws that had excluded Catholics from public life. Browne said of Catholicism that "he considered its spirit to be as hostile to the liberties of this country, as any arbitrary power could be." He declared that Catholics already "had every thing they could wish for, excepting political power," and finished by saying:
:"It had been the wisdom of our ancestors to restrain the executive power from conferring the highest offices upon Roman Catholics, and we ought to revere their memories, and also to do justice to posterity, by maintaining the fences which our ancestors had erected."
![Engraving of Isaac Hawkins Browne](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Engraving_of_Isaac_Hawkins_Browne.jpg)
Browne was seldom a more than equivocal advocate of reform. In 1807 he rose to support a delay in the passing of the
Slave Trade Act 1807
The Slave Trade Act 1807, officially An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire. Although it did not abolish the practice of slavery, it ...
, although he professed himself opposed to the trade. In fact, he had close family connections to the West Indies lobby. In 1809, commenting on a motion to re-establish a Finance Committee of the House, he delivered himself of a masterpiece of equivocation:
:"Mr. I. H. Browne admitted many disagreeable circumstances had occurred in the Committee, but he believed from no ill intention in any one, nor from any desire to protract unnecessarily the time of the Committee. Many thought a reform as to the power and influence of the crown was necessary, and others that it was not; and he believed each party was actuated by what they really thought to be right. Many of the Committee thought the influence of the crown was the most valuable part of the constitution; of course those would not agree to diminish it: but though he did not exactly agree with either party on this head, and many others, he still thought every one had acted to the best of his judgment."
Browne was generally a defender of the established order, in many ways a typical country member of the unreformed Parliament, which he accepted implicitly as legitimate. In 1809 Browne denounced John Curwen's Reform Bill, which sought to outlaw the selling of seats in the House of Commons, "because it would have the effect of excluding a great portion of the wisdom and talents it possessed from that house." Bar-room banter about bribery and corruption was, in case incorrigible, so "in opposing it he trusted that he should not be considered as more a friend to corruption than any other Hon. member. The bill he thought could not be rejected too soon."
Hansard, 24 Jan 1809.
/ref>
Literary work
Browne published an anthology of his father's poems in two volumes in 1768.
He also published many essays, anthologised in two main works. The first, ''Essays, Religious and Moral'' were initially published anonymously in 1815 but his name was appended to later editions. The second, ''Essays on Subjects of Important Inquiry in Metaphysics, Morals and Religion'' were published posthumously in 1822.
Marriages and death
Brown's first wife was Henrietta Hay, daughter of Edward Hay, a career diplomat, and granddaughter of George Hay, 8th Earl of Kinnoull
George Henry Hay, 8th Earl of Kinnoull (23 June 1689 – 28 July 1758), styled as Viscount Dupplin from 1709 to 1719, was a British peer and diplomat.
He was the eldest son of Thomas Hay, 7th Earl of Kinnoull and Elizabeth, daughter of William ...
, whom he married in 1788. Shortly after her death, in 1802, he married Elizabeth Boddington, daughter of Thomas Boddington, who outlived him by 21 years and to whom he left a life interest in the manor of Badger, although it was to pass to his nephew, R.H.Cheney on her death.
Browne, according to his epitaph in the parish church, "in 1812 voluntarily retired from public life" and died "after a gradual decline," in London aged 72 on 30 May 1818.
References
*
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Browne, Isaac Hawkins
1745 births
1818 deaths
Tory MPs (pre-1834)
Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies
British MPs 1796–1800
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
UK MPs 1801–1802
UK MPs 1802–1806
UK MPs 1806–1807
UK MPs 1807–1812
People educated at Westminster School, London
Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford
Fellows of the Royal Society
High Sheriffs of Shropshire