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ROBERT BROWN

Robert Brown (Robert Browne) was the founder of an English religious sect first called Brownists, and afterwards Independents. He was born about 1540 and died in 1633. Educated at Cambridge, where, in 1580, he began openly to attack the government and liturgy of the Church of England as anti-Christian. After attacking the Established Church for years he was excommunicated, but was reinstated, and held a church living for over forty years. The sect of Brownists, far from expiring with their founder, soon spread, and a bill was brought into parliament which inflicted on them very severe pains and penalties. In process of time, however, the name of Brownists was merged in that of the Congregationalists or Independents.

Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist. He was born in 1773 at Montrose and died in 1858. The son of a Scotch Episcopalian clergyman, he received his education at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and afterwards studied medicine at Edinburgh. In 1800 he was appointed naturalist to Flinders' surveying expedition to Australia. He returned with nearly 4000 species of plants, and was shortly after appointed librarian to the Linnsean Society. In 1810 he published the first volume of his great work Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen. No second volume of it ever appeared.

He was the first English writer on botany who adopted the natural system of classification, which has since entirely superseded that of Linnaeus. In 1814 he published a botanical appendix to Flinders' account of his voyage, and in 1828 A Brief Account of Microscopical Observations on the Particles contained in the Pollen of Plants, and on the General Existence of Active Molecules in Organic and Inorganic Bodies. He also wrote botanical appendixes for the voyages of Ross and Parry, the African exploration of Denham and Clapperton and others, and described, with Dr. Bennet, the plants collected by Dr. Horsfield in Java. In 1810 he received the charge of the collections and . library of Sir Joseph Banks. He transferred them in 1827 to the British Museum, and was appointed keeper of botany in that institution.

He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1811, DCL Oxford in 1832, a foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences in 1833. He had the Copley medal in 1839, and was appointed president of the Linnaean Society in 1849. As a naturalist Robert Brown occupied the very highest rank among men of science. A collection of his miscellaneous writings was published by the Ray Society in 1866 and 1867.
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