Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Browne, Thomas
BROWNE, THOMAS (1870–1910), painter and black-and-white artist, born at Nottingham on 8 Dec. 1870, was son of Francis and Maria Browne. He was educated at St. Mary's national school in his native place, and at the age of eleven became an errand boy, first at a milliner's, and then in the lace-market. When fourteen he was apprenticed to a firm of lithographic printers, and served the full period of seven years. In the meantime he began to practise as a black-and-white artist, and had his first humorous drawings accepted by the periodical called 'Scraps.' In 1895 he came to London, which remained his headquarters till his death. He quickly found a ready market for his work in such papers as 'Cycling,' the 'Tatler,' the 'Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News,' 'Punch,' the 'Sketch,' and the 'Graphic.' He paid more than one visit to America, and there published many sketches and cartoons in the 'New York Herald,' the ' New York Times,' and the 'Chicago Tribune.' His illustrations were characterised not only by their ready wit but by their admirable quality of line and fluency of draughtsmanship. By his contemporaries 'Tom Browne' will perhaps be best remembered for his creation of those comic types of American illustrated journalism, Weary Willie and Tired Tim. Among special volumes which he illustrated were 'Tom Browne's Cycle Sketch Book' (1897), 'The Khaki Alphabet Book' (1901), 'The Night Side of London' (1902), and 'Tom Browne's Comic Annual' (1904-5). He also won considerable success as a designer of posters, and in 1897 was one of the founders of the lithographic colour-printing firm of Tom Browne & Co. at Nottingham.
Though Brown was best known as a humorous draughtsman, his work as a painter in water-colour showed in its refinement of colour and design highly artistic gifts. For many of his paintings he found subjects in Holland and Spain, and in 1909 brought back much material from a tour in China and Japan. In 1898 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, and in 1901 a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-colour, while from 1898 to 1901 he exhibited each year at the Royal Academy, sending seven pictures in all. He was a member of the London Sketch Club from its foundation in 1897, and president in 1907. An active freemason, he was a past master of the Pen and Brush Lodge. The happy geniality which distinguished his life as well as his pictures won him hosts of friends.
On 1 Jan. 1910 Browne was operated on for an internal malady, and died on 16 March 1910. He had been a lance-corporal in the City of London roughriders, and then held a commission in the Woolwich company of the army service corps (territorial). He was buried with military honours at Shooter's Hill cemetery. In 1892 he married Lucy Pares, and left one son and two daughters. His portrait in oils, by Kay Robertson, belongs to the Savage Club.
[The Times, 17 and 21 March, 1910; Who's Who, 1910; A. E. Johnson, Tom Browne, R.I., 1909; private information.]