James Mellor Brown

Given as James M. Brown and James Millar Brown, but probably James Mellor Brown.

1. Adm. pens. at QUEENS', Nov. 8, 1825. Of the West Indies. [S. and h. of James, of Gattonside, Co. Aberdeen [sic] (and Ann, dau. of Abner Mellor, Esq., of Kingston, Jamaica). School, Edinburgh High.] Matric. Lent, 1826; B.A. 1830. Ord. deacon (Norwich) May 24, 1829; priest, Sept. 27, 1829. Probably P.C. of Low Ford (alias South Hilton Ferry) Durham, 1831. R. of Isham, Northants., 1839-67. Married (1) Mary, dau. of Jacob Smith, of Givendale Grange, Yorks., 1824; (2) Elizabeth Helen, dau. of Henry Newton, Esq., of Guisborough, 1831. Died Feb. 10, 1867, aged 71, at Isham. Brother of Abner W. (1826); father of Henry (1856), of Abner E. (1854), of William M. (1858) and James S. (1844). (G. Mag., 1867, I. 403.)

2. 'James Mellor Brown was born in about 1796 in one of the British colonies. He obtained a B.A. and from 1831 to 1833 was incumbent of the Anglican Church in Hylton, Durham, where parish records indicate that he was a very conscientious pastor. On 25 March 1839, and 3 December 1839, respectively, he became the rector of Isham Superior and its twin parish of Isham Inferior, near Kettering. He served this combined parish at St. Peter’s Church for the next 27 years until his death on 10 February 1867, just weeks after his wife, Elizabeth, passed away on 13 January 1867. He was replaced as rector by his son Abner Edmund Brown, who had taken over many of the pastoral duties during the last couple years of his father’s life, presumably because of his ill-health. He had two other sons—Henry, who became rector of Long Stratton, Norfolk, and William Mellor, who evidently died in his teen years.'

3. Born 14/07/1796 in Kingston, Jamaica. Stipendiary curate in Little Dunham in 1829 and perpetual curate in South Hylton 1831-1833.

4. A portrait of Isabella, daughter of James Brown and Ann nee Mellor, by Sir Henry Raeburn, appeared in an exhibition of old masters in New York in 1912. The accompanying text read: "Isabella Brown was born 1790 in Jamiaca, daughter of James Brown, a coffee planter, who married Anne, daughter of Abner Mellor, also a coffee planter in Jamaica. In 1799 Isabella was sent to relations in Edinburgh to be educated. The portrait was painted there, and sent out to Jamaica in 1800, but after the death of her grandfather was brought back to Scotland in 1803 and taken to Gattonside (near Melrose), where they lived until James Brown's death in 1816, when his two sons sold the place, and they all went to England, but she never settled anywhere. Her brothers both became Vicars in Northamptonshire, and she lived near them for some years. She died in 1870. Previously owned by a member of the family in England." The portrait shows a little girl in a white dress seated with her hands on her lap.

5. The will of James Brown of Gattonside House was proved in Scotland in 1816. His residuary legatees were his children, share and share alike. In his will, he ordered the manumission of Clarinda, "the property of my said deceased wife which negroe is now and has been at liberty since the death of her master Abner Mellor in the year 1801" and also of Nelly (provided she could pay the fee herself). Clarinda and her three children Betsy, Diana and William were manumitted by James Mellor Brown in 1818. James Mellor Brown also manumitted Andrew in 1821 and Sabina alias Louiza Brown and her child Ellen Brown in 1823.

1. Ancestry.com, Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900 [database online]. Note Gattonside is in the Scottish Borders near Montrose, not in Aberdeenshire.

2. Journal of Creation 17, no 1 (April 2003) pp. 80-87, through https://answersingenesis.org/creation-scientists/profiles/james-mellor-brown/ [accessed 19/01/2019]. 'In 1838, James M. Brown wrote a 56-page pamphlet entitled Reflections on Geology, in which he critiqued the geological views of William Buckland (expressed in his 1836 Bridgewater Treatise) and John Pye Smith (expressed in a letter in the December 1837 issue of Congregational Magazine). Brown opposed the unbiblical philosophical grid, rooted in Germany and France, used by the leading British geologists to interpret the geological evidence. He showed that the inferences of these geologists were unconvincing and not logically necessary. He criticized the way Buckland and Smith, in their attempts to harmonize Genesis and their geological theories, twisted and ignored the scriptural data. Brown would not tolerate such trifling because he was convinced that the Bible was the inspired Word of God. He concluded that their views were ‘a direct and real, though disavowed attack on the Mosaic narrative of the creation’. As a faithful pastor of rural parishes, Brown was motivated to write against the theories of Buckland and Smith out of a genuine concern for the spiritual condition of his people and for sound teaching of Scripture.' The article is silent on his slave-ownership.

3. Clergy of the Church of England Database, person ID 1116688.

4. 'Loan exhibition of old masters, for the benefit of the Artists' fund and Artists' aid societies : at the galleries of M. Knoedler & Co. ... January 11th to 27th inclusive, 1912' (1912) pp. 24-25.

5. Jamaican manumissions, http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples/Manumit2.htm, http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples/Manumit3.htm (given as James Miller Brown at the manumission of Louiza and Ellen).

We are grateful to Kate Birley for her assistance with compiling this entry.