 1723 - 1803 (80 years)
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| Name |
Brown John |
| Birth |
1723 |
Dalkieth, Edinburgh  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Death |
1803 |
Hellerup, Denmark |
| Person ID |
I61 |
My Genealogy |
| Last Modified |
28 Jul 2023 |
| Family |
Appleby Anna, b. 1738, Copenhagen d. 1798, Copenhagen (Age 60 years) |
| Children |
| + | 1. Brown William, b. 1st May 1759, Copenhagen d. 13th Dec 1788, Copenhagen (Age 29 years) |
| | 2. Brown Peter, b. 1760 d. 1803 (Age 43 years) |
| | 3. Brown Catherine, b. 1774 d. 1838 (Age 64 years) |
| | 4. Brown James, b. 1767 d. 1811 (Age 44 years) |
| | 5. Brown Anna Margaretta, b. 1758 d. 1844 (Age 86 years) |
| | 6. Brown John, b. 1762 |
| | 7. Brown David, b. 1764 d. 1769 (Age 5 years) |
| | 8. Brown David, b. 1769 d. 1808 (Age 39 years) |
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| Family ID |
F18 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
1 Jul 2023 |
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| Notes |
- This biography is taken from the excellent history of the Brown family by Graeme Kerridge: https://patersonhistory.org.au/resources/Browns_of_Denmark.pdf
John was the son of William Brown of Coulston, who was killed at Culloden fighting on the Jacobite side, and Margaret Howet. He was born at Dalkieth.
In 1746, a few months after Culloden, John left Scotland, almost certainly because his family was connected the the Jacobites, and moved to Denmark where he spent the rest of his life.
He became a clerk at the shipping company of Nicholas Fenwick, an English trader in tea and porcelain, in Helsingor. Fenwick was the British Consul-General in Copenhagen and traded throughout the Baltic. He died suddenly in 1747, but John Brown continue with the company under the patronage of Fenwick's widow Elizabeth and their oldest son Nicholas who was a few years younger than John.
In 1750 John Brown moved to Copenhagen and set up his own trading company, and in 1755 became a Danish citizen. His business partner was Carl Friedrich Godenius and they had warehouses and traded in coal amongst other things.
30th Oct 1756 John married Anna Appleby, the daughter of Peter Appleby and Anna Partidge. John and Anna went on to have 8 children, of whom William is the significant one for this family tree.
"Peter Appleby was originally from Gosport, Hampshire and trained as a rope-maker to Thomas Linze, a rope-maker to the British king. He arrived in Copenhagen in 1737 with his wife, Anna, to modernise the ropewalk at the Royal Dockyards at Nyhom, Copenhagen. From 1739 he set up his own rope- making facility, and subsequently expanded to include shipbuilding, and sail-making works. His company had trading vessels shipping raw sugar from the West Indies to its own sugar refinery in Odense, Denmark. His shipping company undertook 40 expeditions to the West Indies. Several of the vessels later owned by John Brown were built in the Appleby shipyard in Christianshavn, Copenhagen."
John's brother William moved to Denmark to join him, and John helped him set up in business, with William eventually settling in Helsingor where he set up his own trading business and worked closely with Carl Godenius.
John Brown became a major shareholder in the Danish Asiatic Company in the 1750s, and was a board member 1770-1775, and 1779-1785.
In 1759 John formed a trading house with his brother David, who had also moved to Denmark. "The company traded in grain, coal, wine, clothing goods, sugar, spices and goods from India and commenced establishing a large fleet of merchant ships. The vessels traded in the Danish West Indies, the Mediterranean, Danish India as well as the Baltic and nearby British ports including Hull, Newcastle, London."
John by this time had become a prominent member of Danish society through his increasing business, and in 1776 the King appointed him 'Generalkrigscommissaer', or General War Commissioner, which he retained for life. This title came on the condition that John made a substantial payment to the King for his Navy Fund!
He was obviously a man of great energy and wide interests. He bought farms and brought over Scottish farmers to improve them, he had significant real estate in Copenhagen, and set up the first wagon factory in Copenhagen in 1778. One of the state wagons built is still used by the royal family in Denmark. Between 1779-1787 John owned the Barchmann mansion in Copenhagen, which still stands there today. He was also a member of the Royal Copenhagen shooting society, and donated a target which is still there today.
David stepped down from the company in 1782, and John's son William replaced him. The Danish sugar trade with the West Indies profited hugely from their neutrality during the American war of independence (as British and American ships attacked each other), and the Brown trading company, and John owned a sugar refinery in the 1780s, served by the 17 vessels his company owned by then.
But the end of the American war of independence in 1783, along with political instability in Denmark spelt trouble for the Browns. Reformers clearing up the messy finances of the Royal Court called in their loans, of which the Browns had some, and along with the reduced trading environment, John and William were highly exposed to debt and eventually went bankrupt in 1788. In the same year William Brown died of a stroke aged just 29.
"After the stressful winding up of their business which went on for several years, John and Anna lived a quiet life, until Anna died on 13th December 1798 after a long illness from Chickenpox. With the inheritance from his wife's estate, John's last years were at the rural property at Maglegard outside Copenhagen which he had set up and designed but which, following his bankruptcy, belonged to one of his daughters. He spent his last years engrossed in his substantial library, taking walks in the garden or socialising with relatives and friends. He passed away on 16th January 1803 and was buried in the Appleby Chapel in Frederick's German Church, Copenhagen."
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Biography from a Danish source (translated):
J. Brown, John Brown, 3.3.1723-16.1.1808, grocer, ship owner. Born in Dalkeith, Scotland, died at Maglegård, Gentofte, buried in Kbh. (Fred. ty.k.). B. is believed to belong to a younger branch of an old Scottish noble family and came to Denmark at the age of 23, a few months after his father must have fallen in the battle of Culloden. He had received a good school education and was employed by the trading house Nicolai Fenwich in Helsingør, where he advanced to clerk. In 1750 he came to Kbh. to run a wholesale trade, got citizenship as a wholesaler in 1755 and bought a property in Overgaden o. V. by Snorrebroen where he set up a coal yard and warehouses. He had his office from 1757 in Vingårdsstræde and from 1772 in Brogade 1, which was the outermost farm by Knippelsbro, now demolished. In 1759 he went into partnership with his brother David under the firm John & David B. They mainly traded in wine and coal as well as materials for clothing manufacture, engaged in commission, speculation and exchange trading etc. Their ships mainly went to the West Indies and the Mediterranean, and through a for a number of years they belonged to the large merchants who maintained the West Indian trade. Their merchant fleet grew especially when they also became interested in the East Indian trade and in 1787 consisted of seventeen ships including several frigates.
At the end of the 1750s, B. became a "main participant" in the Asiatic Company and thereby gained influence on the management of the company, which was in full bloom during B.'s period. 1770?75 and 1779?85 he was one of the company's directors. As such, he joined the new direction that would promote private initiative, and from 1774 he sent ships at his own expense to the East Indies, where he had had his brother David appointed governor. When the company's ships came home with their rich cargoes, he bought large lots of them at the auctions, at a single auction, for example, for 30,000 rdl., and he had 100,000 pounds of saltpeter in his warehouse for a few years. In 1781 he bought the shipyard Unrost behind Frederik's German Church for his eldest son William there n.å. was admitted to the firm; this was named John & William B. & co. - B. had a lot of interest in agriculture, he was Gentofte's largest landowner after Bernstorff, he owned here Tranegård with a brickworks, Maglegård and Getreuensand, and called in Scottish farmers to teach the Danes. 1782, when Danish trade reached its peak in the shelter of neutrality, he bought a large property complex on the corner of Frederiksholm's canal and Ny kongensgade (later Mogens Frijs' mansion, now Borup's high school) where he moved in, and the Benzonseje manor between Roskilde and Køge with six churches and much farm property.
Here he immediately began to practice the agricultural ideas of the new age. - B. led a large house, and when the war ended and the lean years came, he could not be kept up despite considerable support from the state; his merchant fleet and his properties had to be realized in 1788; at the same time his son and associate William died aged only 30. In his last years he lived at Maglegård, where he had built a new main building, and as a daughter had bought the estate. When she sold the farm in 1799, she stipulated three rooms for the father during his lifetime "as well as the maintenance for him and his second Chaise-Horse".
source: https://biografiskleksikon.lex.dk/J._Brown
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