xlviii DOWN HOUSI'L 



and coutem2)orary of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin. 

 Mr. Buckston Browne continued the family tradition, representing the 

 fifth medical generation. In 1866, at the age of sixteen, he matriculated 

 as a student of London University, entered University College, was 

 awarded medals in Anatomy, Chemistry and Midwifery, gained the gold 

 medal for practical chemistry and the Liston gold medal in surgery. He 

 became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1874 and gained in 

 open competition the house-surgeoncy to his hospital (University College 

 Hospital) where he served imder Sir John Erichsen. He also taught 

 anatomy under Prof. Vines Ellis. No one ever trained himself more 

 thoroughly for his profession. 



After his term in hospital, Mr. Buckston Browne was invited by Sir 

 Henry Thompson, one of the most distinguished and accomplished 

 surgeons of the Victorian era, to become assistant and afterwards 

 collaborator. In 1884 he began practice on his own account and became 

 very closely, and very successfully, engaged in work. Indeed, his 

 application to his profession was such that for twenty-seven years, in the 

 earlier period of his career, he had neither a free day nor holiday. Mr. 

 Buckston Browne has contributed important articles to the literature of 

 his profession, but it was his practical ability, unerring insight, and skilled 

 hand which gained him his success and the esteem of his colleagues and 

 of his patients. In 1926 the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons 

 conferred on him the diploma of Fellow in recognition of his services to 

 surgery. 



The donor of Down House has had, as his many friends well know, 

 not only a successful life but also a very happy one. 



Mr. Buckston Browne's only daughter is the wife of Mr. Hugh Lett, 

 C.B.E., Surgeon to the London Hospital, and brother of a distinguished 

 artiste, Miss Phyllis Lett. In the Lett family Mr. Buckston Browne 

 possesses three charming grand-daughters. 



But since the war death has laid a heavy hand upon his family. In 

 1919 he lost his only son, Lt.-Col. George Buckston Browne, who was 

 awarded the Distinguished Service Order for action in the field. Lt.-Col. 

 Buckston Browne left an only son. He also was struck down in 1924, 

 dying from typhoid fever in South Africa. A long line was thus brought 

 to a sudden end. In 1926 Mrs. Buckston Browne died, a devoted 

 partnership of fifty-two years being thus ended. Mrs. Buckston Browne 

 rests in the churchyard of her native village, Sparsholt, Hants. Here her 

 husband has endowed an almshouse for aged villagers in her memory. 



The History of Down- House. 



It may not be amiss to recount some of the circumstances which led 

 up to the appeal for the preservation of Darwin's home. Some years 

 before his death the late Sir Arthur Shipley, Master of Christ's College, 

 Cambridge, where Darwin was an undergraduate, wrote to a member of 

 the British Association as follows : ' It seems to me that Down House 



■^ On the Ordnance Survey maps the spelling is Downe, but as Darwin always 

 wrote Doum without an ' e ' the latter spelling has been adopted. 



