T. E. Brown
Thomas Edward Brown was a notable figure born on May 5, 1830, in the Isle of Man. He was the son of a minister and a poet, Robert Brown, whose work garnered praise from famous poet William Wordsworth. After his father's death, Brown became a ward of the Manx Church, which supported his education at Christ Church, Oxford. He graduated with high honors in 1853 and became a fellow at Oriel College, although his aspirations for the priesthood were complicated by his involvement in the Oxford Movement, which aimed to revive sacramentalism in the Church of England. His application for ordination was ultimately rejected, leading him to positions in education, including headmaster at Crypt School and later teacher at Clifton College until his retirement in 1892.
Brown began writing during his student years, producing works that reflected his experiences and the culture of the Isle of Man. His poetry, however, faced challenges with publication, as his original compositions were heavily edited, often to the point of becoming unrecognizable. Despite these setbacks, he continued to write and published several collections throughout his life. After his passing on October 29, 1897, his work was posthumously recognized, with collections published in his memory, further solidifying his legacy in English literature.
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Subject Terms
T. E. Brown
Poet
- Born: May 5, 1830
- Birthplace: Douglas, Isle of Man
- Died: October 29, 1897
- Place of death: Clifton, Bristol, England
Biography
Thomas Edward Brown was born in the Isle of Man on May 5, 1830, to Robert Brown and Dorothy Thomson Brown. His father, a minister in the Manx Church, had written a book of poems, for which he received praise from poet William Wordsworth. His father died when Brown was fifteen, and Brown, his mother, and six siblings, were made wards of the Manx Church. The church paid Brown’s board and tuition at Christ Church in Oxford in 1849, although the nineteen-year-old Brown had to work as a menial servitor in exchange for this financial assistance.
During his years of study, Brown reportedly secluded himself by living quietly at the back of Christ Church, sitting in special seats during divine service, eating before the other students, and studying and working with great deliberation. As a result of his efforts, he not only graduated in 1853 with high honors, but the same year was made a fellow at Oxford’s Oriel College. Although he had been at Oxford as an undergraduate, he was so unfamiliar with the campus that he had to be shown around Oriel College as if he were a first-time visitor.
Brown had his sights on the priesthood, but was waylaid when he became interested in, and involved with, the Oxford Movement, a collective effort by such notables as John Henry Newman to create a more rigorous sacramentalism in the English church. This involvement adversely affected Brown’s chances of being ordained in the Manx Church, and when he applied for ordination with an essay on how his Oxford experience made him highly qualified to meet modern challenges to the church, the Manx Church rejected him.
As an alternative, he became a fellow at Oriel College, but he terminated the position in 1855, returning to the Isle of Man to become a vice principal at King William’s College. By 1857, he would marry his cousin Amelia Stowell, and the couple would eventually have three daughters and two sons. By 1861, he was headmaster at Crypt School, in Gloucester, where he taught such future writers as poet W. E. Henley. However, he proved to be an unsatisfactory headmaster, so he accepted a post as master at Clifton College, near Bristol, where he taught secondary school until he retired in 1892.
Brown had begun writing when he was a student, although he was not acknowledged with any awards or prizes. He wrote of the hardships and burdens heaped on Christ Church servitors, he recited Manx stories, and he wrote some narrative poetry, such as the lengthy “Betsy Lee,” “Christmas Rose,” “Captain Tom and Captain Hugh,” and “Tommy Big-Eyes.” However, Brown was forced to shorten his poems before they were accepted for publication. According to the Dictionary of Literary Biography, “a few copies of the private editions survive so that we can know how severely the poems were mangled for the 1881 publication.”
The revisions left the poems butchered and in an almost unreadable state, and Brown would ultimately opt for a different way of writing in the future. However, his experiences with editors and publishers did not discourage him, and during the next sixteen years he published additional collections of poems. After his death on October 29, 1897, friends collected most of his poems into what would be published as a Golden Treasury Series text in 1908; in 1930, although emphasizing Brown’s Englishness and deemphasizing his “Manx-ness, Brown was honored posthumously in a slightly better, more retentive edition, Thomas Edward Brown: A Memorial Volume.