John Brown M. D. Physician and Essayist Novelist (1810-1882)

John Brown, was a Scottish physician and essayist best known for his canine story, “Rab and his Friends”1859, and his essays “Pet Marjorie”, “Our Dogs”, “Minchmuir” and “The Enterkine”. His greatest achievement however was his three-volume Horea Subsecivae (Leisure Hours)1858, a collection of essays on art, medical history and biography. Brown was born in Biggar, “the canny little capital of the Upper Ward “ as he later described it. He was the son of Jane Nimmo and John Brown, a local clergyman of the Secession church. His mother died when he was six years old. He was privately educated until he was 12 years old when he moved to Edinburgh to attend it’s High School and later University.

After graduating, Brown practised as a physician in the city and subsequently acquired a large medical practice at a time when infectious diseases were rife. In 1840 he married Catherine Scott and their marriage produced three children. In 1847, Brown became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and for a while was Honorary Librarian. He began writing in response to a request for contributions to the notices of paintings exhibited by the Royal Scottish Academy. The editor of the Scots-man newspaper then asked him to write regularly for the paper. He was 48 years old when he published Rab and His Friends. The book was a popular success. He had told the story of Rab to friends many times but had never written it down until he was asked to give a talk in Biggar by his uncle. He decided to write the story out and read it to the audience. It was from this script that the book emerged. Brown was awarded a royal pension in 1876 ‘for distinguished literary eminence’. Sadly Brown suffered during the latter years of his life from depression. He died at home at 23 Rutland Street in Edinburgh from pleurisy on 11 May 1882, and was buried in his father’s plot in New Calton Burial Ground.