Sylvester John Browne


Sylvester John Browne, occasionally referred to as Sylvester John Browne Jnr, was an Australian mining magnate, adventurer and sportsman, whose activities spanned practically the whole of Australia. He was a brother of the author Thomas Alexander Browne.

History

Browne was born in Heidelberg, Colony of New South Wales in 1841 to Captain Sylvester John Browne and Eliza Angell Browne. In 1830 Captain Browne, at one time a ship master of the East India Company, and his wife emigrated to New South Wales with their first son Thomas aboard the barque Proteus, of which he was owner and commander, first delivering his cargo of convicts to Tasmania. He built a home on the outskirts of Sydney which he named "Newtown House" hence, it has been asserted, the suburb of Newtown. In 1835 he built the "Enmore" mansion, for which that suburb was named. In 1840, following the severe drought of 1837–1839, Captain Browne and family moved to "Hartlands", Heidelberg, Victoria. In 1847, after threatening his son Thomas with a gun, he was declared a dangerous lunatic and committed to an institution. No later information has been found about Captain Browne; it may be that he died in the asylum.
Browne was presumably educated in the Colony of New South Wales but real information has been hard to find.
He spent his early years as a grazier in Queensland, at least from its splitting from New South Wales when he was about 18, holding Sandringham and other properties. He was appointed magistrate in Gympie 1876. He was a commission agent at Hillston, New South Wales in 1884.

Horse racing

The Morphettville Racecourse had been resumed by the mortgagee in 1883 after its operator, the South Australian Jockey Club failed financially following the prohibition of the totalizator. Five years later restrictions on the totalizator were eased and Browne purchased the property and leased it, with option to purchase, to the reconstituted Club.
Browne was then involved with the Victorian Racing Club, and to a lesser extent the Victorian Amateur Turf Club. In 1888 he purchased four yearlings: Carrington, Tinlander, Loch and Hartlands, which he raced with only moderate success, and appears to have quit the game in 1891.

Mining

Browne was a founder and local director of the Broken Hill Junction Silver Mining Company in 1886, and its largest shareholder, with 20,000 £1 shares. He resigned from the board in December 1892, as he had moved to Western Australia.
He was also a director of the Sterling Hill Silver Mining Company in 1887.
He formed a company, of which he owned all but a few of the 24,000 £1 shares, to purchase the Bayley's Reward claim at Coolgardie, Western Australia from its finders Bayley and Ford. At its peak the mine was worth £480,000.

Other interests

Browne was an excellent pigeon shooter and cricketer in his younger days; in later years he was a keen golfer, and he was a prime mover behind the Royal Melbourne Golf Club's acquisition of its course at Sandringham.
Browne died suddenly at "Garomna", a property he had recently purchased near Cloncurry, Queensland.

Family

Captain Sylvester John Browne was married to Eliza Angell Browne, née Alexander ;