TIIK ROBERT BROWN MKMORIAL. 27 



was born, and the Town Council has undertaken that, in the event 

 of this house bein<T pulled down iu the course of municipal improve- 

 ments, tlie bust will find a place in the wall of the Lew Town Hall 

 which it is pioposed to erect on the spot. After the formal un- 

 veiling and a brief speech by Mr. Jamieson Paton handing over the 

 bust to the town, and another from the Provost accepting its custody, 

 a meeting was held in the Municipal Chambers, the Provost and 

 Council entertaining the company to a cake and wine banquet. At 

 this meeting Mr. Carruthers was the principal speaker, and we are 

 able to give the following extracts from his speech : — 



I owe the pleasure of being present and the honour of saying 

 something on the life and work of Kobert Brown to the fact thut 

 for a quarter of a century I have occupied Mr. Brown's chair in the 

 Botanical Department of the British Museum, and perhaps also 

 because, like Mr. Brown, I have tilled the honourable office of 

 President of tbe Liunean Society. It is 122 years since Robert 

 Brown was born ia the house we have just visited, and where we 

 have seen Mr. Stevenson's admirable bust of the great botanist 

 unveiled by his relative Miss Paton, and presented by her to the 

 town. The inhabitant of the house at that time was the Piev. 

 James Brown, a minister of tlie Scottish Episcopal Church, whose 

 father, a Forfarshire farmer, lost his life iu fighting for Prince 

 Charlie at Culloden. The Scottish Episcopalians were decided 

 Jacobites, but when Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts, accepted 

 a pension from George III., the Church, interpreting this act as a 

 renunciation of his claim to the British throne, resolved to introduce 

 the name of George III. into tlieir prayers. This gave great offence 

 to many members of the Church. In Edinburgh, one man rose, 

 put on his hat, and walked covered out of the church as a protest 

 against the change. I am somewhat interested in this incident, 

 as the protestor was Charles Smith, my wife's great-grandfather. 

 Those who sympathised with him formed themselves into an inde- 

 pendent Episcopal Cliurch, and invited the Eev. James Brown to 

 be their pastor. He accordingly left Montrose, preferring to separate 

 from his CJmrch rather than renounce his "lawful hereditary 

 sovereign." A prelatic church without a bishop being an anomaly, 

 he sought for consecration at the hands of Bishop Rose, who fully 

 sympathised with Mr. Brown and his Hock, but did not see it to be 

 his duty to leave the denomina;ion. Accompanied by his two 

 churchwardens (one being Charles Smith) as witnesses, he pro- 

 ceeded to the Bishop's residence at the Bridge of Donne, and was 

 consecrated. I have read the original document, with the at- 

 testations of the cliurch wardens. Bishop Brown prepared a state- 

 ment in which he maintained the validity of his consecration, and 

 adduced cases in which, in extraordinary circumstances, consecration 

 by a single bishop was accepted as valid. Bishop Brown had no 

 inferior clergy, but was the sole ordained official in this small 

 Episcopal Church. He continued to minister to the Hock until his 

 death. He was buried in the Canongate Churchyard, Edinburgh. 



I have ventured to narrate this curious and interesting story, as 



