Engineer and Shipbuilder (1839–1917)
Sir Benjamin Chapman Browne (26 August 1839 – 1 March 1917) was an engineer and shipbuilder, chairman of R. &amp; W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Company (1886–1916), Mayor of Newcastle, (1885–1886 and 1886–1887), and deputy Lord Lieutenant of Northumberland (1901).
Early life.
Benjamin Chapman Browne was the youngest son of Colonel Benjamin Chapman Browne who lived in Stouts Hill, just outside the village of Uley, Gloucestershire. He was educated at Westminster School and King's College, London.
Professional life.
In 1870, he was part of a consortium of four people who purchased the works of Messrs. R. &amp; W. Hawthorn on the Tyne. Browne had wanted the business to manufacture only marine engines but orders were buoyant for locomotives. In 1886, the business was amalgamated with the shipbuilders Andrew Leslie and Co.. The combined business became R. &amp; W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Company, Browne was elected chairman and the firm's activities then included the building of torpedo boats and destroyers.
Browne was elected to Newcastle town council in 1879, served as mayor of Newcastle from 1885 to 1887 and was knighted in the 1887 Golden Jubilee Honours. Also in 1887, he was awarded an Honorary DCL by the University of Durham in recognition of the role he played in founding the College of Physical Science, which was later to become Armstrong College, in Newcastle. He was also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and a Member of the Institution of Naval Architects. He authored a number of publications and several of these are brought together in the compilation "Selected Papers on Social and Economic Questions" published by Cambridge University Press in 1918.
Personal life.
In 1861, he married Annie Buddle, daughter of Robert Thomas Atkinson (1807–1845), a mining engineer, of High Cross House, Benwell, Newcastle, and the nephew of John Buddle. They had nine children, two of whom died in early childhood; three sons and four daughters survived him. His eldest son, Edward Granville Browne became an Iranologist and was elected to the Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge.
Browne died on 1 March 1917 at Westacres, Benwell, Newcastle upon Tyne.
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