Author: BROWNE, Thomas
Biography:
BROWNE, Thomas (c. 1787-1851: findagrave.com)
Pseudonyms J. G., Jonathan Buckthorn, the Irish Cobbett
Although Browne’s grave still exists in Louisville KY, no public records have been located for his birth, marriage, and death. American accounts of him and of his son, John Ross Browne, give his name as Thomas Egerton Browne. A prominent political satirist in Dublin, Ireland, he collaborated with John Sheehan (q.v.) on The Parson’s Horn-Book (1831, 1832), The Valentine Post-Bag (1831), and the Comet newspaper (founded 1831). Sheehan describes him as a miller from Queen’s County (County Laois) who emigrated to Cincinnati OH where he later died. However biographical sources for John Ross Browne state that Browne was born in Beggar’s Bush, Dublin, in about 1780-87. A Protestant—possibly a Wesleyan—he married Elana Elizabeth Buck in about 1815, had seven children, and came to prominence in Dublin as one of the founders of the Comet Patriotic and Literary Club. The Club was for repeal of the Act of Union and opposed what it saw as corruption, including the collection of tithes, in the Irish established church. Browne’s essay on tithes, “A Buckthorn for the Black Slugs,” was published in the Comet in 1832 and led to both Sheehan and Browne, as editors, being charged with libel. Browne was defended by Daniel O'Connell but they were convicted in Jan. 1833, fined £100 each, and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. Browne served just a few months of his sentence in Dublin’s Newgate prison and then opted for exile in America. The family moved first to Cincinnati and then to Louisville where he taught stenography and established the Louisville Daily Reporter. In the 1840s they moved to Washington, D.C., where Browne worked as a government clerk in the Treasury and in the Post Office. He died on 21 June 1851 and was buried in Cave Hill cemetery, Louisville. It is not known which of the satiric verses included in The Parson’s Horn-Book and The Valentine Post-Bag were written by Browne and he seems to have favoured writing in prose. (ANBO [for John Ross Browne] 27 Feb. 2026; ancestry.co.uk 27 Feb. 2026; F. J. Rock, J. Ross Browne: A Biography [1929]; James D. Birchfield, “Banned in Dublin: “The Parson’s Horn-Book,” Journal of Library History 10 [1975], 231-40; GM 13 [1874], 685-701; Louisville Daily Courier 23 June 1851) SR