Albert Richard Brown

Albert Richard Brown was born in Ringwood in 1839. The family home was a large house, looking across open land known as the Furlong, crossed by a footpath for people walking from Harbridge to the market using Meeting House Lane, which led to the market place in Ringwood. The Brown children spent time playing on the common. Albert's parents, Richard and Mary Ann brought up a large family in their home. Mary Ann's father who was named John Pritchard, had been a senior excise officer in charge of the Crown's preventative officers along the south coast of Hampshire and in part of the neighbouring county of Dorset. By 1851 he had retired from the preventative service and was living at Stanpit, a hamlet on the edge of the coastal marshes with their numerous inlets a short distance to the East of Christchurch, Dorset. The Census in 1851 found Albert staying with his grandparents, aged eleven. The call of the sea beckoned and Albert had at an early age, made up his mind that he would go to sea.
At the age of fourteen, on an October day, 1853, he bade farewell to his family in Ringwood and accompanied by his father left home for Bristol as an apprentice where he enlisted upon Industrious a brig, 307 tons, owned by a Mr. Davy of Exeter, who used her, principally for profit in trade with the West Indies and America. He had signed on for his first voyage as 'boy' -a journey which took him to the West Indies, Port Royal, Bridgetown, Montserrat and Georgetown, on which he was taken under the wing of Jim Pyne its 2nd mate, who came from Exmouth. He would later be joined in a career at sea, by his brother, Frank and the three young men -the brothers and James Pyne, in due course became sea captains, master mariners on merchant ships. There was nothing however which could have indicated to him what awaited him as his working life evolved with his long and successful association with Japan. In 1861 keen to progress his career, he joined the P. & O. Company and worked his way up the officer positions on a series of voyages in the following three years. Albert Brown was seconded to Japan by the P. & O. Company. to take command of one of the first steamers owned by the Japanese -ca. 1868. In 1871 he was resident in Yokohama, a member of the Masonic Lodge. He entered the service of the Meiji Government, Japan; a position in the Imperial Japanese Service on a lighthouse survey ship, charting and surveying the coastline of Japan.
Albert had served 12 years for the Japanese Government and had become one of their most trusted advisers, when he was appointed to Executive Superintendent of the Japanese Marine Bureau and later appointed as general Manager to NYK line operating 58 vessels around Japan and the Far East. In 1881 the Meiji Emperor conferred upon him an Imperial honour, the Order of the Rising Sun, and later, the Imperial Order of the Sacred Treasure in relation to his loyal service to the Government of Japan. In the late 1880s Albert Brown tendered his resignation from the Government of Japan and also as Director of NYK, returned to Britain to his family and taking up residence in Scotland. He was recorded as residing with Louisa at Sweethope House, Bothwell, Lanarkshire in 1891; his younger sister, Kate, was staying with them at the time of the Census.
He formed his own business, A.R. Brown commissioned -ordering and superintending the construction and conveyance of ships for Japan from both the shipyards on the Clyde and the Tyne for the NYK line and the Japanese Government. The Offices from which The Company's business was conducted were listed in 1894-5 at 153 Queen Street, Glasgow and 34 West George Street, Glasgow. In 1899 the business was renamed A.R. Brown & Co. as he went into partnership with Edward Brown, his son. The making of another fruitful partnership beckoned. Perhaps through his numerous contacts and in particular the British Corporation of Shipbuilding, he became the partner of the consulting engineer and naval architect, George McFarlane, a Glaswegian, who designed and superintended the building of steamers and was frequently commissioned by the Japan Mail Steamship Co, for which Albert was also agent in Glasgow. Their private Company, Messrs. A.R. Brown, McFarlane & Co was formed in 1900. McFarlane became the managing director of the Company's Engineering Department. The objects of Brown's business included its agency business in shipping and shipping insurance in which Albert had an extensive array of contacts to the Far East and in particular Japan. For a time too Albert Brown was official Japanese Consul in Glasgow. Albert had the one son, Edward Albert Brown and two grandsons, Richard and Thomas, both of whom died without heirs. Albert Brown retired and lived in Hellensborough. In 1911 the census recorded him and Louisa Brown his wife, then for 46 years, staying in Bournemouth. He died when staying in the resort at the Royal Bath Hotel in 1913, and is buried alongside his parents and other members of the Brown family in the Cemetery at Ringwood. In the former Trinity Church, Ringwood there was once a plaque dedicated by Albert Brown: 'Presented in August 1901 by Albert Richard Brown of Sunhill House, Helensburgh, Scotland, Knight of the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun in memory of his mother Mary Ann Brown for many years a member of this Church.'
From the History of Trinity Church Ringwood 1781 to 1981. 'Another prominent member of .. Trinity Congregational Church .. was Mr. G.P. Brown, for many years auditor of the church accounts. In 1897 he presented a large Communion chair .. to the Church .. in memory of Eileen Marianne Klasen-Brown (the daughter G.P.B. had adopted as a young child) but who had died at an early age of 19. Mr. G.P.Brown was one of four generations of his family to hold parochial offices in Ringwood. He himself, an accountant, was Registrar and Clerk to the Board of Guardians but held a number of other appointments relating to the local community. He died in 1914 and his widow presented the Individual Communion set in his memory. His brother, Mr Albert R. Brown, who had been in the service of the the Japanese Government organising the mercantile marine is described on the brass plate as a Knight of the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, presented the Communion Table in memory of his mother .. Mary Ann Brown .. in 1901.
Sources
[1] Births & Baptism
(i) Name: Albert Richard Brown : England & Wales Civil Regn Birth Index 1837-1915
Regn. Date: 1839 : Quarter of Year: Oct-Nov-Dec
Regn. Place: Ringwood, Hampshire, England
Parishes in Regn. Dist. &c. Ringwood &c. Vol 8 p.185
Index accessed: https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?dbid=8912&h=34420612&...
(ii) ↑ Hampshire, England, Church of England Births & Baptisms 1813-1921 : Name Albert Richard Brown
Baptism Dt. 30 Dec 1839 : Baptism Place Ringwood, Hampshire, England : Residence Place Ringwood
Father Richard Brown。 Mother Mary Ann Brown
accessed: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/321222:62422?ti...
[2] Devon, England : Church of England Banns and Marriages 1754-1920
Name Albert Richard Brown
Marriage Age 26 : Recd. Type Marriage : Marriage Date May 1866
Birth Date 1840
Marriage Place Littleham (Near Exmouth), Devon, England
Residence Dt. Abt. 1866 : Residence Place Exmouth
Religion Anglican
Father Richard Brown : Spouse Louisa Pyne
accessed: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/623246:62287
[3] Career &c.
(i) Postal Directory -Glasgow: 1894-5; Grace's Guide to British Industrial History [George McFarlane & Br. Corp. Register of Shipping] & Dictionary of National Biography; Eng. & Wales, Index of Wills & Probates 1853-1943 p.266; brownmac.com; Membership Register, Grand Lodge, Yokohama, Japan. Census [Scotland] 1891.
(ii) Scottish Industrial History 1999 Vol. 19, p.21 & reprint from letter accepting Albert Brown's resignation. The translated letter from the President of NYK, M.Morioka on April 9 1889 is held by Glasgow University Archives: Ref. no. UGD172/1/1/1 (iii)
London Gaz. Jan. 18 1881 (no.24925), p.231
(iii) Albert Richard Brown -Biography & Genealogy Master index
Name Albert Richard Brown : Birth Yr. 1839. : Death Yr. 1913
Source Biography Index. A cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines. Vol. 8: Sept. 1967-Aug. 1970. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1971. (BioIn 8)
[4] Census
(i) Albert Brown in Ringwood Census, Meeting House Lane -Richard Brown Head, 1861
Class: Rg. 9; Piece: 668; Folio: 15, p. 23; GSU roll: 542681https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/7995868:8767
accessed: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/7995868:8767
(ii) Albert R. Brown in Scottish Census, 1891
Age 51 : Estimated Birth Year abt. 1840
Relationship Head : Spouse's Name Louisa Brown
Where born England
Regn No 625/1 : Regn Dist. Bothwell : Civil parish Bothwell : County Lanarkshire
Address Sweethope Ho:
Occupation Glasgow Consul for Japan & Steamship and Insurance Agent
ED 2 : Household Sched. No. 111 Line 21
Roll CSSCT1891_224
accessed: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/2694120:1108
[5] Ringwood Town Council: tabulated list of Cemetery Burials, Dec. 2021
[6] Albert R. Brown Mcfarlane : Scotland, Postal Directories, 1825-1910
Albert R. Brown M'Farlane : Residence Date 1893-1902
Residence Place Glasgow, Scotland
Residence Street Address
Albert R. M'Farlane & : Occupation Merchants & Agents.
[7] Probate:
(i) England: Central Probate Registry, London; Grant of Probate, sealed April 23 1913 [1913/1237]
(ii) Scotland: Dumbarton Sheriff Court : SC65/35/11 -14/4/1913 : EIK Granted 10/01/1914 & Second EIK Granted 21/11/1914; SC65/35/20 -14/04/1913; SC65/35/21 -10/01/1914; & SC65/35/21 -21/11/1914 : Description : Hon. Consul for Japan at Glasgow, Summerhill, Shandon, Dumbartonshire D. 07/03/191 at Parkston, Dorsetshire, Testate
[7] History of Trinity Church Ringwood 1781 to 1981 ps. 17-18. Printed, Davey & Winterson Ltd, Bruce Grove, Watford, Herts