ROBERT BROWN, D.C.L., F.R.S., P.L.S., &c.
MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.
Born December 21, 1773. Died June 10, 1859.
Robert Brown, whom Humboldt has designated as the "Prince of Botanists," was the second and only surviving son of the Rev. James Brown, Episcopalian Minister, of Montrose. Several generations of his maternal ancestors were, like his father, ministers of the Scottish Episcopalian Church, and from them he appears to have inherited a strong attachment to logical and metaphysical studies, the effects of which are so strikingly manifested in the philosophical character of his botanical investigations. At an early age he was sent to the grammar-school of his native town, and in 1787 entered at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he immediately obtained a Ramsay Bursary in philosophy. About two years afterwards, on his father quitting Montrose to reside in Edinburgh, he was removed to the University of that city, in which he continued his studies for several years; but without taking a degree, although destined for the medical profession.
In the year 1791, at the age of seventeen, Brown laid before the Natural History Society, of which he was a member, his earliest paper, which contained, together with critical notes and observations, an enumeration of such plants as had been discovered in North Britain subsequent to the publication of Lightfoot's "Flora Scotica." Although this paper was not intended for publication, it brought the young botanist into communication with Dr. Withering, and laid the foundation of a warm and intimate friendship between them. In the year 1795, soon after the embodiment of the Fifeshire Regiment of Fencible Infantry, Brown obtained in it the double commission of ensign and assistant surgeon, proceeding with the regiment to the north of Ireland, in various parts of which he was stationed until the summer of 1798, when he was detached to England on recruiting service.
Fortunately for himself and for science, this service enabled him to pass some time in London, where his already established botanical reputation secured him a cordial reception from Sir Joseph Banks, of whose library and collections he availed himself to the utmost. In 1799 he returned to his regimental duties in Ireland, from which he was finally recalled, in December of the following year, by a letter from Sir Joseph Banks, proposing for his acceptance the post of naturalist in the expedition for surveying the coasts of New Holland, then fitting out under the command of Captain Flinders.
In the summer of 1801 he embarked at Portsmouth and set out on this expedition. His absence from England lasted more than four years, during which period the southern, eastern, and northern coasts of New Holland, and the southern part of Van Diemen's Land were thoroughly explored; and he arrived in Liverpool, in the month of October, 1805, enriched with a collection of dried plants amounting to nearly 4000 species, a large proportion of which were not only new to science, but likewise exhibited extraordinary combinations of character and form. Immediately on his arrival in England, Brown was appointed librarian of the Linnean Society, of which he had been elected an associate in 1798. The materials which he had been indefatigable in collecting during this voyage, and the vast store of facts and observations in relation to their structure and affinities which he had accumulated, opened out to him new views upon a multitude of botanical subjects, which he was enabled by his position in the Linnean Society to enlarge, and to perfect, and ultimately to lay before the world in a series of masterly publications, which at once stamped upon him the character of the greatest and most philosophical botanist that England had ever produced.
In 1810 appeared the first volume of his 'Prodromus Floræ novæ Hollandiæ et Insulæ Van Diemen.' This important work, together with his memoirs on Proteaciæ and Asclepiadeæ, which immediately followed, and his 'General Remarks, Geographical and Systematical, on the Botany of Terra Australis,' appended to the 'Narrative of Captain Flinder's Voyage,' published in 1814, by displaying in the most instructive form the superior advantages of the Natural System, gave new life to that system, which had hitherto found little favour in France, and speedily led to its universal adoption. A series of memoirs followed the above works, chiefly in the Transactions of the Linnean Society, or in the appendices to various books of travel and survey, which gave fuller and more complete development to his views upon almost every department of botanical science, and induced the illustrious Humboldt not only to confer upon Brown the title mentioned at the beginning of this memoir, but also to designate him as the "Glory and Ornament of Great Britain."[5]
At the close of the year 1810, on the death of his learned and intimate friend Dryander, Mr. Brown succeeded to the office of Librarian to Sir Joseph Banks, who (on his death in 1820) bequeathed to him for life the use and enjoyment of his library and collections. These were subsequently, with Mr. Brown's consent, and in conformity with the provisions of Sir Joseph's will, transferred, in 1827, to the British Museum; and from this latter date, until his death, he continued to fill the office of Keeper of the Botanical Collections in the National establishment. In 1849 Mr. Brown was elected President of the Linnean Society, of which, soon after the death of Sir Joseph Banks, he had resigned the Librarianship, and had become a fellow.