Motto: Fortiter ed fideliter.
The Browne’s of Carlow originally came from the West Country of England in 1427. Robert Browne, second son of Sir William Browne of Abbas Roding in Essex., is said to have come to Ireland with Cromwell. He married Jane Feltham of Gray’s Inn, London and died in 1677. [1] His eldest son, John Browne of Carlow was married circa 1680 to Mary, daughter of Robert Jennings of Kilkea Castle, Co. Kildare.
John was succeeded by his son William Browne of Browne’s Hill, Co Carlow. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Rev John Clayton, Dean of Kildare and Derry, and sister of the learned Robert Clayton, Bishop of Clogher and Dean of Derry. She was said to be a kinswoman of the Clayton baronets, with whom the Browne family later married.[2] Their firstborn son John died unmarried on 23rd April 1765. Their second son Robert succeeded and is dealt with anon. As to their three daughters, Anne was married on 20th July 1758 to the Rt Rev Thomas Bernard, DD, Bishop of Limerick; Catherine married the Rev Abraham Symes, DD; and Mary married Peter Gale of Ashfield, Queen’s County.
Robert Browne succeeded to Browne’s Hill on the death of his father in 1772. Ten years earlier, on 27th March 1762, he married Eleanor, daughter of Richard Morres, MP, barrister-at-law (see de Montmorency). Browne’s Hill House dates to the time of Robert may have been built in 1792. He died in January 1816, leaving four sons – William (see below), Robert (see below), Colonel Redmond Browne who died unmarried and the Rev John Browne – and two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne, who both died unmarried.
Robert and Eleanor Browne’s second son was Lieutenant General Robert Browne Clayton (d. 1845), a distinguished officer who commanded His Majesty's 12th Regiment of Light Dragoons. In 1794, while still a Major, he was stationed with the regiment near Rome. During this time he received an audience with Pope Pius VI. He was accompanied by fellow officers Captain Head and Lieut. the Hon Pierce Butler. The Pope ceremonially placed a Dragoon helmet on Browne’s head expressing ‘his gratitude to the British nation, his earnest desire for its welfare’ and concluding with a prayer that truth and religion might triumph over injustice and infidelity. The Pope made Robert a Prince of the Roman Empire, a title that has passed down to the present head of the family, Robert Browne Clayton. A painting of this ceremony hangs in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. It was painted by James Northcote RA, a pupil Sir Joshua Reynolds, and entitled ‘The Presentation of British Officers to Pope Pius VI’.[3]. A copy hangs in the Army Museum in Chelsea in London.
He served during the Egyptian campaign of 1801, including the actions of the 8th, 13th and 21st March. As such he was on the scene when the British commanding officer Sir Ralph Abercromby was fatally wounded at Alexandria. He also served in the costly and unsuccessful Walcherën campaign in 1809 and was present at the siege of Flushing.
On 1st December 1803, he married Henrietta Clayton, only daughter and eventual heiress of the essayist Sir Richard Clayton, 1st Bart, of Adlington, Lancashire, Recorder of Wigan and sometime Constable of Lancaster Castle. Her brother was Major Sir Robert Clayton, 2nd and last Baronet.[4] When Sir Richard died at the Consul in Nantes in April 1828, it was the General who succeeded to the classic brick mansion of Adlington Hall. He was also given the Carrigbyrne estate in County Wexford where the Browne-Clayton memorial stands today. Sir Richard’s brother Robert succeeded to the Clayton baronetcy but died without male heir in 1839, whereupon the title became extinct. The General’s succession to Adlington was completed on 6th April 1829 - less than two weeks after the Catholic Relief Act was passed by Parliament - when he assumed the additional surname and arms of Clayton by Royal License.
During the turbulent political days of the 1830s he was a prominent magistrate and Conservative representative in Carlow affairs. In 1839 he became embroiled in a heated debate with Daniel O’Connell over the case of a Colonel Verner, a Protestant magistrate from Armagh apparently dismissed from his post for raising a toast to the Battle of the Diamond, an ancient fray in which Protestants had beaten Catholics.
By February 1841 the name of ‘General Browne-Clayton’ had become well-known among those early Victorian readers of The Times. In an advertisement on page 7 of the March 9th edition he said he was ‘desirous to express the comfort and advantage he [had] derived at his advanced age of 78 years, and after two years trial, from the use of Messrs. S and B Solomon’s newly invented spectacles’. This ‘valuable invention fully merits the patronage they have received of the Royal Family and so many individuals of high distinction, as well as the numerous scientific and eminent medical practitioners’.[5] This testimonial continued to run in The Times until long after his death in March 1845. By September 1841, Major General Sir Hoard Elphinstone was begging to say the very same of these excellent spectacles. Solomon’s also offered an ‘Invisible Voice Conductor” which would provide ‘immediate relief to old standing extreme cases of deafness’.
Whether it was land rents or a handsome pay-check from Solomon’s is unclear but, by the autumn of 1841, he had sufficient money to pay the ‘several thousand pounds’ required to complete the Browne Clayton Monument. It stands today on the Browne’s old estate at Carrigadaggan Hill, Carrigbyrne, Co. Wexford, just off the N.25. The 94 feet tall Corinthian column was designed in 1839 by Thomas Cobden, famous for the design of the gothic Cathedral in Carlow Town as well as the Ducketts Grove near Tullow, Co. Carlow. The builder was James Johnston of Carlow. It was made of the finest cut Mount Leinster granite. Nine uniformed dragoons are standing around with the figure that is probably the architect, in frock coat and top hat concentrating on a drawing board. The London Times declared it ‘one of the most chaste and classic ornaments of which the country can now boast’.[6] They later described it as ‘worth a dozen of the wretched abortion now in course of erection at Charing Cross’.[7] The monument is considered particularly significant as it is the only internally accessible Corinthian Column in existence The monument was designed as a tribute to the General’s commanding officer, General Sir Ralph Abercromby, who died heroically on 28th March 1801 in the conquest of Egypt during the Napoleonic Wars. (The local name for it is reputedly 'Browne's Nonsense' as legend has it that Browne originally built it in memory of his son - thought to be killed in battle but who turned up alive and well shortly after completion of the pillar).
The column is modelled on the celebrated Pompey’s Pillar near Alexandria (AD296), which General Browne-Clayton first saw the very day Abercrombie received his mortal wound. Pompey’s Pillar was a popular classical landmark of the day, and the Irish version proved equally so upon completion. In his will, General Browne-Clayton stipulated details for an indefinite military ritual to be performed at the column. Every year, at sunrise on the 21st March (the day on which General Menon attacked the British encampment before Alexandria), the tri-coloured French flag was to be hoisted on the top of the column. At 10 o’clock this was to be lowered and replaced by the British flag which will remain until sunset. The General further stipulated that on 28th March, the flag be hoisted at half-mast in honour of Sir Ralph who, mortally wounded by a spent ball on the 21st, died on board HMS Foudroyant on the 28th. Abercromby’s debarkation of the troops in Egypt, in the face of strenuous opposition, is ranked among the most daring and brilliant exploits in British military history. Today the column’s survival resonates more as a beautiful cultural landmark than a memorial to the Empire and an eccentric general. Disaster struck when the Browne Clayton Column was hit by a lightning bolt on 29th December 1994. Several huge stones were dislodged from the capital and the upper third of the shaft, and two large sections of masonry on each side were also pushed apart. This left a dramatic jagged opening about 5 metres high and 1 metre wide. The column was meticulously restored by the Wexford Monument Trust Ltd (a hybrid of Wexford County Council, the World Monument Fund in Britain, and An Taisce) with a topping out ceremony in October 2004.[8]
The General was a keen scientist to the end, attending sittings with the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Manchester in June 1842. He died at Adlington Hall on 10th March 1845. His widow Henrietta died at Clifton, Gloucestershire on 8th September 1858.[9]
Aside from his directions for the Browne-Clayton Monument, the General’s will was a somewhat messy business. He had entrusted some £9000 of government stock to a broker by name of Henry Lanauze with strict instructions on how it was to be exchanged for other stock. In November 1847, Lanauze was brought before the courts to answer a charge that he had unlawfully converted and used that sum ‘to his own use’.[10]
General Browne-Clayton left a son, Richard, and a daughter, Eleanor. The latter married the Rev James Daubney and died at the Albany Villas in Brighton in 1896.[11] Richard Browne Clayton, DL, JP (1807 – 1886) lived at Adlington Hall, Chorley, Lancashire, and Carigbyrne, Co. Wexford. He graduated with a BA from Oxford on April 16th 1828 and an MA on May 2nd 1832. On 5th January 1830 he married Catherine Jane Dobson (d. 1889), only daughter of the Rev. J. Dobson. These two only children were to experience great pain in the summer of 1856 with the death of their only son, Harrow-educated Robert John Browne Clayton in the Crimean War. An officer with the 34th Regiment, he was badly wounded during the assault on the Redan on 18th June 1855 and died in the camp on July 12th at the age of 20. [12]
On 29 July 1859, Richard and Catherine’s eldest daughter Henrietta (1831 – 1884) was married at St James's Paddington to Robert Thomas Carew, DL (d. 20 Jan 1886) of Ballinamona Park, Co Waterford.[13] Their second daughter Katherine Annette (d. 1909) was married on 16th April 1857 to Colonel Philip Savage Alcock, JP,(d. 20 May 1886) of Park House, Co. Wexford, third son of Harry Alcock and the heiress Margaret Savage. A third daughter Emma Jane died unmarried in Crowborough, Sussex, in May 1929, leaving an unsettled estate of over £40,000.[14] The fourth and youngest daughter Mary Edith was married at Christ Church, Cheltenham, on 15th January 1885 to Major Thomas Edwards Harman, DL, JP, Queen’s Regt, of Palace (and later Carrigbyrne), Co. Wexford, and had issue one son and one daughter.
The General’s elder brother William Browne (1763 – 1840) was hailed by The Times as ‘admittedly one of the best landlords on Ireland’.[15] Born in January 1763, he was 53 years old when he succeeded his father Robert at Browne’s Hill in 1816. It may be that he lived at Viewmount until then. A JP and magistrate, he served as High Sheriff of Carlow in 1794 and was later Lord Lieutenant for the county as well as MP for the former Huguenot stronghold of Portarlington.
William’s first wife was Lady Charlotte Bourke, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Mayo, Archbishop of Tuam. She bore him two sons – Robert, their heir, and Captain Joseph Deane Browne, Carabiniers, (who married Miss Thursby and died on 1st January 1878) – and four daughters. The eldest daughter Elizabeth was married on 31st January 1814 to Sir Joseph Denny Wheeler-Cuffe, 1st Bt, (d. 9 May 1853) of Leyrath, Co. Kilkenny, and died 15 Jan 1871 leaving issue. The second daughter Eleanor Mary married on 5th May 1840, as his second wife, William Fitzwilliam Burton, JP, of Burton Hall, Co. Carlow; he died just four years later on 15th Nov 1844 and she died, without surviving issue on 5th December 1870. The third daughter Charlotte was married in 1835 to William Brownlow, DL, JP, of Knapton House, Queen’s County, eldest son of the Rev Francis Brownlow, Rector of Upper Comber, Co Derry; they had issue before his death on 18th July 1881. The fourth and youngest daughter Annette was married on 10th May 1826 to the Ven Hon Henry Scott Stopford (d. 28 Oct 1881), Archdeacon of Leighlin, fifth son of the Earl of Courtown, KP, and died without issue on 27th March 1842.
Lady Charlotte Browne died in 1806. On 8th March 1813, William was married secondly to Lady Leitita Toler, second daughter of the Earl of Norbury, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He died on 1st April 1840 aged 77. Lady Letitia gave him a further three sons and a daughter. We know nothing of the eldest son John Toler Browne. The second son was Captain Raymond Browne, 7th Fusiliers who died in 1907 leaving a daughter Letitia Grace (d. 1937) who was married at St Peter’s, Eaton-square, in November 1887 to the cricket-loving cotton magnate Sir Henry Hornby, 1st Bart. (In 1883, she was presented to the Queen by her aunt, Gertrude Browne[16]). The third and youngest son (Hector) Graham Browne was married in 1878 to Gertrude Sophia, eldest daughter of John Horrocks Ainsworth of Moss Bank, Lancashire. As to William and Lady Letitia’s daughter Grace Isabella, she was usefully married on 26th June 1852 to Richard Godfrey Bosanquet (d. 15 May 1875) of Benham Park, Berkshire, younger son of Jacob Bosanquet, a director of the East India Company, of Broxbournebury, Herts, but died without issue.
Upon his death in 1840, William was succeeded by his eldest son Robert Clayton Browne (1799 – 1888), then aged 41. Educated at Eton, Robert was an important magistrate in Carlow, being variously DL, JP and High Sheriff in 1859. During the Great Famine, aided by grant money, he employed some 400 men to build the high wall and gates around the Browne’s Hill estate, feeding them and their families from the gardens. He stood for the Conservatives of the Carlow borough in the 1852 election but was defeated by John Sadlier. On 28th October 1834 he married Harriette Augusta (d Jan 1898), third daughter of Hans Hamilton, MP, of Sheephill, Co. Dublin. (see Holmpatrick). He died on 22nd July 1888 leaving three sons and a daughter.
Robert and Harriett’s second son Colonel Charles Henry Clayton (1836 – 1889) died unmarried in April 1889, less than a year after his father. Born in 1836, he entered the 97th Regiment in 1854, became a captain I 1857, major 1872, lieutenant-colonel 1878, and colonel 1882. He served with his regiment in the Crimean campaign, where he was wounded. He was mentioned in despatches, and received a medal with clasp, also the Sardinian and Turkish medals and the 5th class of the Medijidieh. He later served in the Indian Mutiny where was again wounded and received a medal and clasp. He commanded the regiment with the Natal field force during the Transvaal campaign in 1881 and from 1885 until his death commanded the 23rd Regimental District. He was created a CB in 1886. He died at the depot in Wrexham from pleuro-pneumonia aged 53. [17]
We know little of the third son Robert Clayton Browne (1839 – 1906) save that he died unmarried. The daughter Annette Caroline Browne was married in the parish church of Carlow on 12th February 1863 to fellow Carlovian Denis William Pack-Beresford, DL, JP, MP, of Fenagh. The Ven Henry Scott Stopford, Archdeacon of Leighlin, officiated.[18] Pack-Beresford was the second son of Sir Denis Pack, a much decorated military general, and in 1854 had succeeded to the estates of the first and last Viscount Beresford (an illegitimate son of the Marquis of Waterford, for which he assumed the additional surname and arms of Beresford. Denis died on 28th December 1881 and Annette on 11 Feb 1892, leaving seven sons and two daughters; the late ‘Commander Beresford’ of Fenagh was their grandson.
Robert and Harriette’s eldest son William succeeded to Browne’s Hill on the death of Robert on 22nd July 1888. Educated at Eton and Oxford University, William was only 24 years old when he filled the seat of High Sheriff for Carlow in 1859. Like his father he was also a JP and DL. In 1889 he assumed by Royal Licence the additional surname of Clayton. On 10th January 1867 (the year of the Fenian Rising), he married Caroline Barton, fifth daughter of John Watson Barton, DL, JP, of Stapleton Park near Pontefract, a cousin of the Bartons of Saxby Hall. In May 1867 he was presented to Queen Victoria by the Marquis of Drogheda at a Levee held in St James’s Palace.[19] The Marchioness of Drogheda introduced Caroline to the mourning monarch the following month.[20] In December 1867 the couple were listed as subscribers to the Palestine Exploration Fund which sought to unearth the Temple.[21] In 1876, William was commended in The Times for of a school on his estate ‘where children of the poor are taught cookery very successfully’.[22] In 1881, Caroline was noted as a £10 subscriber to the Association for the Relief of Ladies in Distress through Non-Payment of rent in Ireland’.[23] He died on 13th January 1907 after which his widow Caroline settled at Dunkeld, Portmarnock, Co. Dublin. She died on 24th September 1916. They had three Eton-educated sons and nine daughters. The eldest son Robert Clayton Browne is dealt with shortly.
The second son 2nd Lieutenant William Clayton Browne was born on 29th July 1873 and educated at Eton. In October 1892, he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant with the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He was serving with the (Queen’s Own) Royal West Kent Regiment at Agrah Malakan in Afghanistan when killed on 30th September 1897, aged 24. The Times printed a telegram sent from the Viceroy on October 1st which explained: ‘[General] Jeffrey’s brigade encountered enemy in force at Agrah and Gat village. Enemy made considerable resistance and troops, being hotly engaged at close quarters, suffered some loss. Agrah finally burnt, and Gat partly burnt’. 2nd Lt William Clayton Browne and Lt-Col O’Bryen, 31st Bengal Infantry, were named among the dead. [24]
The third son, Lt-Cmdr Lionel Denis Browne (1874 – 1946) served with the Royal Navy Reserve. On 4th April 1914 he married Winifred, daughter of the Rev. John Bell, MA, Vicar of Pyrton Hill, Watlington, Oxon. Winifred died at the Okanagan Mission in British Columbia in June 1938.[25] Lionel died in the same Mission on December 29th 1946 aged 72.[26]
Their son Robert Denis was born at Pyrton Hall in 1917, served in the Second World War as a Lieutenant with Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and settled in Kelowna, British Columbia, with his Canadian born wife Patricia Acland.[27] They had three children – Patrick (born 13 March 1947), Peter Shane (born 21 May 1949) and Jeanne Madeline (b. 19 August 1953).
Their daughter Zoe settled in Montreal where she was a well known medical and scientific journalist with the Montreal Star. She married Jacques Louis Bieler, Bsc, youngest son of Professor Charles Bieler of McGill University’s Theological College, and had issue a son Brian (born 1949) and daughter Zoe (born 1950) who both appear to have pursued intellectual careers.
Mary Caroline was born on 13th Nov 1867. She was married on 6 Oct 1898, as his second wife, to Thomas Henry Bruen Ruttledge, DL, only son of Robert Ruttledge Esq ofBloomfield, Co. Mayo. The marriage took place at Staplestown Church in Carlow with the Bishop of Ossory and the Dean of Leighlin officiating.[28] He died 23 Sept 1917. By this marriage there were two sons, Major Robert Francis Ruttledge, MC (a noted huntsman, ornithologist and founder of the Saltee Bird Observatory in Co Wexford) and William (a respected entomologist and falconer). Mary died on 27 Feb 1955.
Annette (Constance) was born on 20 Dec 1868. She was married in Whonnock, BC, Canada on 20th May 1913 to Robert Harris, son of Edward C Harris of Bryn Towy, Carmarthen. The Gosport-educated Robert left the security of Whonnock on the outbreak of the war, enlisting in the Public School Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment. In March 1915 he obtained his commission in the Duke of Wellington’ Regiment (in the service of which regiment his late brother-in-law Horace Johnston had died). He went out to Gallipoli with the drafts in September and served during the evacuation of the Peninsula. He was killed in action in France on September 28th 1915, seven weeks after Horace was killed. Annette died on 15 Feb 1948.
Margaret (Frances) was born on 30th June 1871. She later lived at 4 Saville Court of Brompton Square, London. She died unmarried on 22nd July 1938.
Florence Hope was born on 15 Aug 1872. She was married on 28 April 1904 to Lt Col Horace James Johnston, DSO, younger son of Francis Johnston of Dunsdale, Westerham, Kent. On August 26th 1915, Horace’s mother published a request in The Times for ‘any information concerning Colonel HJ Johnston, DSO, 8th Duke of Wellington’ Regiment (West Riding Regiment)’. She noted that he had been ‘reported missing in the Dardanelles between August 7 and 11’.[29] Alas it transpired that he had been killed in action at Gallipoli on 11th August 1915. She died suddenly at her home in Abinger Common, Dorking, on 18 Oct 1939. They left issue.
Kathleen (Louise Octavia) was born on 20th October 1875. She died unmarried in Winchester on 15th April 1961 and was buried in St Michael’s Church.
Madeleine (Emma) was born on 28th November 1876 and died unmarried on 19th June 1953.
Lucy Victoria was born on 3rd March 1878. On 12th December 1901 she married Claud Edward Pease, JP, subsequently director of Barclay’s Bank. He was the youngest son of Arthur Pease of Hummersknott, Darlington, and Cliff House, Marske-by-the-Sea, Yorkshire. Lucy was awarded the OBE in 1918. He died on 22nd March 1952 and she died 10 months later on 3rd February 1853. They left issue; see Pease in Burke’s Peerage).
Julia (Harriet Vere) was born on 29th April 1881. On 10th January 1914 she married at St. Anne’s in Dublin to (later Lt Col) Coote Hely-Hutchinson, OBE, Royal Fusiliers. The Primate of Ireland performed the ceremony. Julia was given away by her brother Major Browne-Clayton. Richard Tottenham was best man while Julia’s sister Madeleine and Noelle Hely-Hutchinson were bridesmaids. She wore white satin charneusse trimmed with old Carrickmacross lace. A veil of similar lace covering a wreath of orange blossom and myrtle was in her hair. The reception was held in the Shelbourne Hotel, after which the new Colonel and Mrs HH left for London.[30] Coote was the eldest son of John Hely-Hutchinson, DL, JP, of Seafield, Donabate, Co. Dublin. He died n 30th September 1930 and she died on 10th June 1948, leaving issue. (See Donoughmore in Burke’s Peerage).
Caroline Zoe was born on 16th December 1882. On 14th December 1905, the 23 year old youngest daughter married Captain Hubert Chase Hall, 5th Fusiliers, only son of Major Henry Hall of Denbie, Lockerbie, Dumfrieshire. He died on 27th March 1947. She died 17th September 1957.
William and Caroline Browne-Clayton’s eldest son and heir Brig-Gen Robert Browne-Clayton was born on 24th February 1870, making him the third eldest of the twelve children. Educated at Wellington he joined the army soon after school. On April 18th 1890, The Times announced that he had been promoted from 2nd Lieutenant to Lieutenant with the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Tom Connolly, who would perish in the Boer War, was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant the same day. Having passed his military exams, he awaited a vacancy on the cavalry. It came in December 1890 when he transferred to be a 2nd Lieutenant with the 5th (Royal Irish) Lancers. [Burke’s erroneously claim he was in command of the 5th Lancers by 1890]. He was promoted to lieutenant in September 1894. In 1900 he was made Adjutant of his regiment, retaining that office during the South African War (1899-1902), in which he was three times mentioned in despatches and made Brevet Major and hon Brig-Gen. He was awarded the Order of the White Eagle of Serbia (3rd class) with crossed swords. In February 1903 he was presented to His Majesty King Edward VII at a Levee held in Buckingham Palace by Lt Gen WGD Massy, CB.
On 22nd May 1909 he retired from the army in the rank of major. He was 39. His retirement did not completely curtail his military activity, however. He remained as an officer in the Special Reserve, serving with the South Irish Horse. He was a noted polo player between 1906 and 1909, lining out for the 5th Lancers when they crushed the Irish Guards 7-1 in the 1906 Inter-regimental tournament at Aldershot.[31] He also played for Carlow in the Irish Open Cup 1909 and County Cups of 1912 and 1913. He also played for Ireland in the Patriotic Cup in August 1909 but The Times rather meanly wrote him off as having been ‘quite outclassed from start to finish’. The Major was Field Master of the Carlow Hunt before the First World War at a time when Mr Grogan and Colonel Williams were joint-Masters.
In July 1915 he was appointed Commanding Officer of the 16th Battalion Cheshire Regiment, one of the Bantam battalions raised by the Birkenhead MP Sir Alfred Bigland. The 16th Cheshires were deployed to France in January 1916 as part of 105th Brigade, 35th Division. Browne-Clayton was awarded the DSO for his part in the fighting at Trones Wood in July 1916. He was promoted GOC 59th Brigade, 20th (Light) Division on 14 October. 20th Division took part in no more operations on the Somme after 8 October and was comparatively little employed in the first half of 1917. Browne-Clayton remained in command until 26 August 1917 when he was replaced a few days after the battle of Langemarck. In December 1927, the Free State Government of Ireland appointed him to a Special Committee investigating the alleged grievances of ex-British servicemen in the Irish Free State. Their report, issued in February 1929, concluded that there were indeed some grievances but that these should be leveled against the British government rather than the Free State government. [32] In later life he looked after his herd of prize shorthorns, selling them at the annual Horse Show in Dublin. In June 1938, he attended the 5th Lancers annual dinner at the Cavalry Club. He died at Browne’s Hill on March 5th 1939 aged 69.
On 16th November 1905 he married an Australian girl, Mary Magdalene, third daughter of Edward Wienholt of Jondaryan, Queensland. Two years later he succeeded his father at Browne’s Hill. She died at Pimperne, Blandford, on 20th July 1932 and was cremated in Woking. He died on 3rd March 1939, leaving Browne’s Hill to his only son, William. Robert and Mary’s only daughter Annette Mary was born on 28th April 1908 and married at Sloane Street, on 21st April 1933, to The Times polo correspondent Colonel Sir Andrew Marshall Horsbrugh-Porter, 3rd Bart, DSO and bar. The H-Ps lived at Chipping Norton on Oxon and had issue.
Lt Col William Patrick Browne-Clayton (1906 – 1971) was 33 years old when, in March 1939, he succeeded his father at Browne’s Hill. Educated at Wellington and Sandhurst, he served with the 12th Royal Lancers from 1926 through World War Two until 1947. He was a keen huntsman, point-to-pointer and polo player. He played on the 12th Lancers team with his brother-in-law Andrew Horsbrugh-Marshall when they reached the semi-finals of the Ranelagh Cup in 1936 and when they won the Subalterns Gold Cup in 1937. He owned some useful steeplechasers, Sweet Peach and Isric who raced at courses such as Northampton, Birmingham and Sandown Park before the Second world War. On 23rd October 1935 he was married at St Margaret’s, Westminster, to Janet Maitland Bruce Jardine. Charles Spencer, 12th Royal Lancers, was best man. The honeymoon was spent in the west of Ireland. Janet was the elder daughter of Brig-Gen James Bruce Jardine, CMG, DSO, DL, 5th Royal Irish Lancers, of Chersterknowes, Selkirk, Roxburghshire (see Burke’s LG 1952). He died on 3rd September 1971. His widow lived at The Coach House, 6 Vesey Place, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, before moving to Wandsworth in London where she died in 2002.
In 1937, William and Janet had a daughter Magdalene Jardine. She was followed by a son Robert, born in 1940. A second daughter was born in Edinburgh on March 2nd 1942 but sadly did not survive.[33] William was reported wounded in August 1942.[34] By 1946, Janet was advertising in The Times for a young Governess to look after her son and daughter.[35] By 1958, the Browne-Claytons were living at Cashel House in Connemara, the same landscape in which their daughter Magda would find her husband. William died in Dublin on 3rd September 1971.
Robert Bruce Browne-Clayton was born on 25th April 1940 and educated at Loretto in Scotland and Sandhurst. He served as a Captain in the Royal Green Jackets, retiring in 1968. He was subsequently Agricultural, Fisheries, Food, Forestry and Countryside adviser to Margaret Thatcher and her Government, as well as CEO to various Trade Associations including the Coal Industry, Building Industry and Financial Services Industry. On 1st March 1969 he was married in Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin, by the Bishop of Tuam (Arthur Butler), to Jane (Eveline Reine) Butler. She was a daughter of Eric Peter Butler of The Close, Blagdon, near Bristol. They have issue a son, Benedict john (b. 11 March 1970) and daughter Clare Louise (b. 20 Nov 1973).
Robert’s elder sister Magda Dunlop (nee Browne Clayton) is the author of the useful history of ‘Browne’s Hill 1763 – 1951’ upon which some of this text is based. She was born on 16th June 1937 and educated at the Froebel Trg Institute on Roehampton. On 19th September 1959 she was married in Chelsea to Captain Brian WH Dunlop, 3rd King’s Own Hussars, younger son of the late Canon Douglas Lyall Chandler Dunlop of Kilcummin Rectory, Oughterard, Co Galway. They have issue two sons, Julian Pilikington (b. 1961), Dominic (b. 1969) and a daughter Lindsay Janet (b. 1963).
1st and 4th, gu, a chevron between three lions’ gambs erect and erased arg, a border arg on a chief arg an eagle displayed sa, armed and crowned or (for BROWNE); 2nd and 3rd arg, a cross engrailed sa between four totteaux (CLAYTON).
An eagle displayed sa, armed and crowned or (BROWNE).
An arm in armour grasping a sword ppr (CLAYTON).
[1] Will dated 10 Feb 1677, pr 27 May 1678
[2] Burke’s Extinct & Dormant Baronetcies
[3] Presented by Richard C Browne Clayton Esq. See British Miscellany, 1865.
[4] Burke’s Extinct & Dormant Baronetcies
[5] The Times, Tuesday, Mar 09, 1841; pg. 7; Issue 17613; col E
[6] The Times, Wednesday, Oct 13, 1841; pg. 6; Issue 17800; col D
[7] The Times, Wednesday, Apr 20, 1842; pg. 15; Issue 17962; col F
[8] See: www.wmf.org.uk/projects/view/browne_clayton/
[9] The Annual Register: World Events, Edmund Burke. (1859).
[10] The Queen v Lanauze, Nov 19 & 22 1847, Reports of Cases in Criminal Law Argued and Determined in All the Courts in England and Ireland, Edward William Cox, published by J. Crockford, Law Times Office, 1848
[11] The Times, Thursday, Mar 07, 1895; pg. 1; Issue 34518; col A
[12] The Gentleman's Magazine (1855); The Times, Saturday, Jul 19, 1856; pg. 9; Issue 22424; col E
[13] The Annual Register of World Events A Review of the Year (1859).
[14] The Times, Wednesday, Aug 21, 1929; pg. 15; Issue 45287; col C
[15] The Times, Friday, May 21, 1852; pg. 8; Issue 21121; col B
[16] The Times, Tuesday, May 22, 1883; pg. 8; Issue 30826; col A
[17] Obituaries, The Times, Wednesday, Apr 17, 1889; pg. 7; Issue 32675; col B
[18] The Times, Monday, Feb 16, 1863; pg. 1; Issue 24483; col A
[19] The Times, Thursday, May 30, 1867; pg. 11; Issue 25824; col C
[20] The Times, Monday, Jun 17, 1867; pg. 9; Issue 25839; col C
[21] The Times, Monday, Dec 02, 1867; pg. 6; Issue 25983; col C
[22] The Times, Monday, Nov 06, 1876; pg. 4; Issue 28779; col D
[23] The Times, Tuesday, Dec 13, 1881; pg. 8; Issue 30376; col B
[24] The Indian Frontier Risings. Further Fighting. The Times, Saturday, Oct 02, 1897; pg. 5; Issue 35324; col A
[25] The Times, Tuesday, Jun 28, 1938; pg. 1; Issue 48032; col B
[26] The Times, Friday, Jan 03, 1947; pg. 1; Issue 50649:; col A
[27] Their eldest son Patrick Robert Browne was born in 1947 and educated at Notre Dame University, BC. Their second son Peter was born in 1949, married Mary Law of Vancouver and lived in British Columbia.
[28] The Times, Monday, Oct 10, 1898; pg. 1; Issue 35643; col A
[29] The Times, Thursday, Aug 26, 1915; pg. 9; Issue 40943; col B
[30] The Times, Tuesday, Jan 13, 1914; pg. 11; Issue 40419; col B
[31] The Times, Monday, Jun 11, 1906; pg. 6; Issue 38043; col D
[32] The Times, Friday, Feb 01, 1929; pg. 9; Issue 45116; col E
[33] The Times, Thursday, Mar 05, 1942; pg. 1; Issue 49176; col A
[34] The Times, Thursday, Aug 13, 1942; pg. 8; Issue 49313; col C
[35] The Times, Friday, Mar 15, 1946; pg. 10; Issue 50401; col D