Sir William Brown, 1st Baronet, of Richmond Hill

Sir William Brown, 1st Baronet (30 May 1784 – 3 March 1864) was a British merchant and banker, founder of the banking-house of Brown, Shipley & Co. and a Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1846 to 1859.

Brown was born at Ballymena, Ireland, the son of Alexander Brown (1764–1834), an Irish linen-merchant who established in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the family business of Alex. Brown & Sons, which became one of the leading investment banks of the U.S. in the nineteenth century. He was sent with his brothers, George (1787–1859), John (1788–1852), and James (1791–1877), to be educated at the school of the Revd J. Bradley in Catterick, North Yorkshire.^[1] In 1800, at the age of sixteen, William Brown accompanied his father and brothers, George, John, and James to Baltimore. In 1809 Brown left America for Liverpool. Here he established a branch of the firm, which had now begun to deal largely in raw cotton as well as linen and soon afterwards developed into one of general merchants and finally bankers. Brown became one of the leaders in Liverpool commerce, and in 1832 took a principal share in the reform of the system of dock-management then in vogue at that port.

When the financial crisis of 1837 seriously threatened the firm, Brown persuaded the Bank of England to advance him £2,000,000 to tide matters over in view of the firm's multiple interests. Brown only needed half the amount, which he repaid within six months. His business, both mercantile and banking, continued to increase, and in 1844 he was held one sixth of the trade between Great Britain and the United States. "There is hardly," declared Richard Cobden at this period, "a wind that blows, or a tide that flows in the Mersey, that does not bring a ship freighted with cotton or some other costly commodity for Mr Brown's house."

In 1846, Brown was elected Liberal M.P. for South Lancashire, and held the seat until 1859. In 1856 friction arose between the British and American governments because British consuls were enlisting recruits for the Crimean War, but this was largely allayed by Brown, who in an interview with Lord Palmerston, then prime-minister, explained the objections taken in America.

In 1860 Brown presented Liverpool with a public library and museum, the William Brown Library and Museum. In 1863 he was selected as High Sheriff of Lancashire and made a baronet.

Brown died at Liverpool at the age of 79.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by William Brown