Hillington, Norfolk, UK
Church of St Mary,
Monuments to Mary Lady Browne, 1763 and Sir William Browne †1774. Marble. South chancel. Sir W.B. (William Browne) Archit; Portrait roundel signed: Wilton fecit.
The monuments were planned as a pair, with Sir William’s, predictably, slightly larger than his wife. Both have contrasting open pediment and a deliberate contrast in the orders: fluted Ionic pilasters for Lady Browne and male Doric for Sir William. Roman theory had characterised the orders in terms of their suitability for temples for male gods (Doric) and goddesses (Ionic), a contrast revived and popularised in the Renaissance. For all that they make a clumsy, amateur and slightly ill proportioned pair and serve as a reminder that ‘Architecture in the nineteenth century (and of course as here the eighteenth) was an odd and ill-defined profession. Its training was unsystematic and its identity insecure. In an age in which a man could describe himself as a ‘Hairdresser and Architect’ anything was possible (F. Jenkins, Architect and patron (1962 p. 225), quoted in the OED under memorialists). Only one 18th architect is listed by Howard Colvin with the initials W.B, a William Baker (1705-1771), who was not knighted and dead before the second monument was designed. Browne presumably ordered the frames and the inscriptions from an unknown stonemason, but had the wit to commission Joseph Wilton for his fine portrait. Born in 1692 Browne had begun to practise medicine in King’s Lynn in 1716, where, although considered eccentric, he made a fortune before moving permanently to Bloomsbury in 1749, a year after he had been knighted. In 1765 he had a difficult time as President of the College of Physicians, resigning prematurely the following year. He was caricatured in Samuel Foote’s The Devil on Two Sticks. Zoffany illustrated scene 2 in Act III in which the president of the College of Physicians, Browne played by Foote on the right, makes a fool of himself blustering as he questions a shoemaker who wants to become a physician (collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/1668359). The play drew Browne’s approval, but Foote’s characterization is confirmed in another contemporary ‘ludicrous description of the old gentleman, with his muff, his Horace, and his spyglass, showing all the alacrity of a boy both in body and mind.’ His will was written in a mixture of English, Latin and Greek, also found in the inscriptions at Hillington. That to his wife notes that she was the daughter of Charles Greene and that their daughter, Mary, had married William Folkes, whose family had come into possession of the Hillington estate in 1678. This would explain the choice of site for the memorials. His includes much bragging, noting that he had been born on the same day as Cicero and that he would now join (Sir Isaac) Newton, (Robert) Boyle and (John) Locke!
Leslie Stephen, ‘Browne, Sir William (1692–1774)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 and online; Howard Colvin, A biographical dictionary of British architects, 1600-1840, Yale University Press, 2008.
Hillington, Norfolk, UK
Church of St Mary,
Monuments to Mary Lady Browne, 1763 and Sir William Browne †1774. Marble. South chancel. Sir W.B. (William Browne) Archit; Portrait roundel signed: Wilton fecit.
The monuments were planned as a pair, with Sir William’s, predictably, slightly larger than his wife. Both have contrasting open pediment and a deliberate contrast in the orders: fluted Ionic pilasters for Lady Browne and male Doric for Sir William. Roman theory had characterised the orders in terms of their suitability for temples for male gods (Doric) and goddesses (Ionic), a contrast revived and popularised in the Renaissance. For all that they make a clumsy, amateur and slightly ill proportioned pair and serve as a reminder that ‘Architecture in the nineteenth century (and of course as here the eighteenth) was an odd and ill-defined profession. Its training was unsystematic and its identity insecure. In an age in which a man could describe himself as a ‘Hairdresser and Architect’ anything was possible (F. Jenkins, Architect and patron (1962 p. 225), quoted in the OED under memorialists). Only one 18th architect is listed by Howard Colvin with the initials W.B, a William Baker (1705-1771), who was not knighted and dead before the second monument was designed. Browne presumably ordered the frames and the inscriptions from an unknown stonemason, but had the wit to commission Joseph Wilton for his fine portrait. Born in 1692 Browne had begun to practise medicine in King’s Lynn in 1716, where, although considered eccentric, he made a fortune before moving permanently to Bloomsbury in 1749, a year after he had been knighted. In 1765 he had a difficult time as President of the College of Physicians, resigning prematurely the following year. He was caricatured in Samuel Foote’s The Devil on Two Sticks. Zoffany illustrated scene 2 in Act III in which the president of the College of Physicians, Browne played by Foote on the right, makes a fool of himself blustering as he questions a shoemaker who wants to become a physician (collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/1668359). The play drew Browne’s approval, but Foote’s characterization is confirmed in another contemporary ‘ludicrous description of the old gentleman, with his muff, his Horace, and his spyglass, showing all the alacrity of a boy both in body and mind.’ His will was written in a mixture of English, Latin and Greek, also found in the inscriptions at Hillington. That to his wife notes that she was the daughter of Charles Greene and that their daughter, Mary, had married William Folkes, whose family had come into possession of the Hillington estate in 1678. This would explain the choice of site for the memorials. His includes much bragging, noting that he had been born on the same day as Cicero and that he would now join (Sir Isaac) Newton, (Robert) Boyle and (John) Locke!
Leslie Stephen, ‘Browne, Sir William (1692–1774)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 and online; Howard Colvin, A biographical dictionary of British architects, 1600-1840, Yale University Press, 2008.