Thomas Brown (minister)
The Very Rev Dr Thomas Brown DD FRSE was a Scottish minister in the Free Church of Scotland who rose to its highest rank, Moderator of the General Assembly in 1890. He was a noted geologist and botanist. He wrote prolifically on the history of the Disruption of 1843.Life
He was born on 23 April 1811 in the manse at Langton, Berwickshire in south-east Scotland, the son of the Rev Dr John Brown DD, minister of that parish.
He trained in theology at Edinburgh University and began working as a minister in 1837 at Kinneff in Aberdeenshire. He left the Church of Scotland at the point of the Disruption of 1843. He spent some years without a ministry before being placed in the relatively prestigious Dean Free Church on Belford Road in north-west Edinburgh in 1849. He remained in the Free Church of Scotland for the rest of his life, serving as its Moderator for 1890/91 and the age of 79 in succession to Rev John Laird.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1861. His address was then listed as 16 Carlton Street in Stockbridge, Edinburgh.
Edinburgh University honoured him with a Doctor of Divinity in 1880.
He died at home, 16 Carlton Street in Edinburgh on 4 April 1893.Family
He married Mary Ann Wood, sister of physician Alexander Wood, in 1848. Their children included the physician and neurologist, John James Graham Brown.Publications
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