Both doctors, Browne brothers William and Harris prefer to build big pastoral tracts in early South Australia

The Browne borthers, William James (left) and (John) Harris Browne, were both qualified doctors but perferred pastoral pursuits, soon after arriving in South Australia around 1840.  Among the huge propoerties they bought were Buckland Park, north of Adelaide, site of a 21st Century outer Adelaide metropolitan housing estate.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia

Brothers William James Browne, in 1839, and (John) Harris Browne, in 1840, came to South Australia as qualified doctors but turned to become becoming pastoralists on a large scale.

Harris Browne did make an historic medical contribution in 1844 whenasked by explorer Charles Sturt to join his expedition to central Australia as a surgeon. When Sturt fell ill with scurvy, Browne took command of the party on the return journey and brought it back to safety.

The Browne brothers were born in Wiltshire, England, to a country landowner. Both were well educated for the medical profession, studying at the Ecole de Médecine, Paris, and Edinburgh University.

William Browne arrived in South Australia as assistant surgeon on the Buckinghamshire with future pastoralist William Allen and his partner John Ellis, and Joseph Gilbert who took up land at the Barossa Valley’s Pewsey Vale where Browne joined him and cleared and ploughed a few acres and sowed wheat and maize.

His brother Harris Browne arrived in the Orleanna a year later with sister Anna who married Joseph Gilbert in 1848. Although the Browne brothers were in the first South Australian medical register in 1845 they didn’t practise much before turning to pastoral pursuits. Their first joint venture was a farm at Lyndoch leased from the South Australian Company. In 1842, they had 1,043 sheep. Next year, they gained Booboorowie, 28 square miles under occupation licence, 125 miles north of Adelaide. By 1851, with their first pastoral lease, they held more than 60 square miles, 859 square miles by 1858 and more than 2000 square miles by 1867.

The Brownes' leases ranged from Streaky Bay through South Australia’s far north and into the southeast, and included at least 15 large stations. They also bought large freeholds: Buckland Park from Allen & Ellis in 1856, Moorak at Mount Gambier 1862 and Booboorowie 1863. They made few improvements on their leases and at their peak were South Australia’s biggest wool exporters, but, by 1870, the brothers' partnership was completely dissolved.

In 1860-62, William Browne represented Flinders in South Australia’s House of Assembly, advocating extended roads, railways and bridges but was criticised for introducing a bill to allow squatters to buy their leases on terms. He moved with his family to Moorak, near Mount Gambier, in 1863, and bought his brother's share of Buckland Park and Booboorowie in 1864. At Yahl near Mount Gambier, he bought 18,000 acres from William Clarke, hoping to cut it up for closer settlement

William Browne introduced Lincoln sheep that he crossed with large merinos, aiming at long-fibred lustrous wool on the advice of the Bradford chamber of commerce. He also experimented with grasses and fodders. At Mount Gambier, he was chief founder of Christ Church, donating the land and half the building cost.

In 1866, Browne took his children to be educated in England. He visited South Australia several times before his wife Mary died in England in 1878. He then settled at his estate, Buckland Filleigh, Devon. In 1879, with proposals for settling many European emigrants in the Northern Territory, where Browne had held several cattle runs, including Spring Vale at Katherine, Browne wrote to the Arthur Blyth, South Australian agent-general in London, recommending a scheme to attract 500 young British “capitalist bachelors” by offering large leases at low rents and assisted passages for “labourers who might also comprise natives of India, or other coloured races, excepting Chinese”.

Late in 1880, Browne contested the seat of Chelsea in the United Kingdom House of Commons without success. He died at Eastbourne, England, in 1894. His estate was valued for probate at £51,000 in England and £126,000 in South Australia.

Harris Browne also settled in England in the 1870s but made several visits to South Australia.