Thomas Browne (Australian politician)

Thomas Frederic De Courcy Browne (1838 – 9 October 1899) was an Irish-born Australian politician.

He was born in Dublin to John Browne and Mary O'Neill. His early life is unclear; some sources state that he was educated at the University of Dublin, while others indicate he went to the Victorian goldmines as an adolescent. He moved to New South Wales in 1862 and mined at Burrangong Creek, where he became a local journalist and chairman of the mining court. In 1868 he followed the gold rush to Gympie, where he edited the Gympie Times. He went to north Queensland to mine the Gilbert River before returning to New South Wales in 1870, living at Gulgong. In 1881 he was appointed local gold commissioner, and also edited the Home Rule Pilot. In 1885 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the member for Mudgee. He was defeated in 1887, but returned in a by-election for Wentworth later that year. He was defeated for good in 1889, and moved to Broken Hill and then to Western Australia. Browne died in Sydney in 1899.^[1]

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