Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/256

 New Gallery in 1900); 'Surgeon-Colonel Gallway, C.B.'; Mrs. Milne of Kinaldie' and 'Richard Myddleton of Chirk Castle' (1901); 'Rev. James Geddie'; 'Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart.' (1902); 'The Marquess of Linlithgow'; 'Dr. Alexander Ogilvie' (headmaster of Gordon's College, which is in the permanent collection at Aberdeen), and the portrait-group of 'Sir Charles Tennant's family,' which was his last work. His fanciful picture entitled 'Fantasie en Folie,' shown at the Royal Academy in 1897, won a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. He is represented in the Royal Scottish Academy by the portrait of Mr. W. D. Ross.



BROWN, GEORGE DOUGLAS (1869–1902), novelist, born at Ochiltree, in Ayrshire, on 26 Jan. 1869, was son of George Douglas Brown (d. 1897), farmer, of Muirsmudden, in Ochiltree parish, by Sarah Gemmell (d. 1895), of Irish parentage. Brown at first went to the schools in his native village and the parish of Colyton, and when his family moved to Crofthead near Ayr in 1883 he attended the academy at Ayr. In 1887 he matriculated at the university of Glasgow, and in 1890 graduated M.A. with first-class honours. He won at the same time the Eglinton fellowship, but relinquished it the following year on carrying off the Snell exhibition, with which in the autumn of 1891 he proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford. There, though he never enjoyed good health or perfect ease, he took a first class in classical moderations in 1893. Absence in Scotland in solicitous attendance on his mother's deathbed accounts for his only obtaining a third class in the final classical school in 1895. On leaving Oxford in 1895 Brown settled in London, where he earned a living by his pen and by private tuition. In July 1896 he contributed a centenary paper on Burns to 'Blackwood's.' He wrote a boy's book, 'Love and a Sword' (1899), under the pseudonym of Kennedy King. He 'read' for the publishing firm of John Macqueen, and reviewed books and wrote fiction anonymously or pseudonymously for the 'Speaker,' 'Chapman's Magazine,' and other periodicals.

In the autumn of 1900 he rented for a few months a cottage at Hindhead, and there he wrote, after long deliberation, the novel 'The House with the Green Shutters.' Published in the autumn of 1901 under the pseudonym of George Douglas, the book achieved at home and in the United States a popular success, and was recognised by good critics to be a notable piece of fiction. A well-constructed story, it vigorously fused a rich store of vivid and first-hand impressions, some of them already embodied in earlier studies which Brown had not troubled to get printed. Brown avowed impatience with the complacent temper of contemporary Scottish novelists, and painted Scottish character in sombre colours.

Brown next planned further works, including an historical romance of the Cromwellian period, and a metaphysical study of 'Hamlet,' of which fragments remain. But nothing had been completed when he died unexpectedly while on a visit to a friend, Mr. Andrew Melrose, at Muswell Hill, on 28 Aug. 1902. He was buried in his mother's grave in the cemetery at Ayr. Mr. William Strang, A.R.A., etched a portrait.



BROWN, GEORGE THOMAS (1827–1906), veterinary surgeon, born in London on 30 Dec. 1827, was elder son of Thomas Brown of Notting Hill Terrace, London, by his wife Grace Bryant. Colonel Sir William James Brown, K.C.B. (b. 1832), is his younger brother. George, after being educated privately, entered in 1846 the Royal Veterinary College. On 15 May 1847 he obtained his diploma and commenced veterinary practice in London. In 1850, when only twenty-three, he was appointed professor of veterinary science at the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, where he remained for thirteen years. A change in the administration of the college brought him back to London in 1863, though he continued to the end his association with the college as honorary professor. On the outbreak of cattle-plague in June 1865 he was appointed by the government to assist [q. v. Suppl. II] in stamping out the disease, and he remained associated with the veterinary department of the privy council until 1872, when he succeeded as chief veterinary officer. Under various titles he remained in charge of veterinary matters at the privy council office and (after 1889) at the board of agriculture until his retirement under the age clause at the end of 1893. He was made C.B. in 1887, at Queen Victoria's Jubilee, and