Frederick Brown 1829-1903

𝗕𝗘𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗛 𝗕𝗜𝗥𝗧𝗛𝗗𝗔𝗬

21 June

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺.

On 3 August, 1871, Lincolns Inn-trained solicitor and barrister Frederick Brown - a one-time Beechworth gold and insurance agent, auctioneer, later council leader and parliamentarian - stood in Beechworth general sessions court.

He was representing 16 or 17-year-old Edward ‘Ned’ Kelly on two charges. The first: horse-stealing. The second: receiving a stolen horse. Brown successfully defended his client on the first, proving that Kelly was in Beechworth prison at the time of the alleged theft. But the advocate unsuccessfully defended the second charge. Released from gaol, young Kelly was found to have received a stolen horse. He was gaoled again, this time for three years, incarcerated first in Beechworth, then in Pentridge, then on a ship’s hulk in Port Phillip Bay.

Brown (1829-1903), noted by Beechworth historian Carole Woods for his ‘strong sense of public duty’, was elected in September 1856 to the first Beechworth Municipal Council. He was council chairman in 1858 and 1859-1860, when the town hall and first council chambers were designed and built in Ford Street. Widowed earlier, in 1866 he married Louisa Docker, daughter of Sarah and Joseph Docker, former Anglican rector and grazier from Bontharambo near Wangaratta.

As president of the subsequent United Shire of Beechworth 1872-76 during its construction, Brown officiated at the opening of the first section of the Beechworth branch railway to Everton in July 1875 and responded at the opening of the completed line on 29 September 1876, when The Ovens and Murray Advertiser noted 'the terrible ten miles from Everton through the hills for a sum a little exceeding £7000 a mile' (about $1.2 million per mile / $746,000 per kilometre today).

Brown was elected to Victoria’s Legislative Council in November 1883 and was committees chairman 1895-1903. He was a founder and staunch adherent of Anglican Christ Church Beechworth, first chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Wangaratta when it was created in 1901, and memorialised by his friends with a pair of windows depicting St Peter and St Paul, the patron saints of Christ Church, following his death in 1903.

Archdeacon Richard Potter said of him: "Frederick Brown was a gentleman of the old school. He was one of those grand old pioneers who came to this country in the early days, and did much to help and guide by his example the young men. We cannot afford to lose such men. But we trust that the good they have done will live after them."

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Sources: Christ Church Beechworth Anglican Parish, Jamie Kronborg, National Library of Australia (Trove) The Ovens and Murray Advertiser, Parliament of Victoria, State Library of Victoria.