293 
MEMOIRS 
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL. 
THE BROME FAMILY. 
BY 
MAJOR AND QUARTERMASTER R. EL MURDOCH, R.A. 
(Assistant-Superintendent of Records). 
Chapter I. 
Individuals bulk largely on the horizon of Royal Artillery history; and 
their memoirs are of value in the ratio of the capacity of these to reflect 
light upon untrodden or obscured paths which lay open to former ex¬ 
plorers of the history of the Regiment. Individuals, and groups or 
families, imperfectly and not known to the present generation of 
gunners, might justly claim precedence over the Bromes in tho Royal 
Artillery Pantheon; and their contemporaries, the Cleaveland family (the 
founder of whom was the Herodotus of artillery history), and the 
Toveys (a race of fighting soldiers, the founder of whom was the true 
modern Shrapnel), run closely at their heels to the entrance to the 
Valhalla—for canonization by the Royal Artillery Institution Com¬ 
mittee : but priority is now given to the Brome family for the follow¬ 
ing reasons:— 
(1) They have been ignored, somewhat significantly, in “Eng¬ 
land’s Artillerymen” (Browne), and in “The History of 
the Royal Artillery” (Duncan)—their founder being fils 
clu regiment , and not having emerged out of the Public 
Schools or from the Royal Military Academy. 
(2) They moved through a more extensive and varied artillery 
zone than any other family of the regiment, having joined 
hands continuously from the XVII th well into the XIX th 
century; and they possessed “ health, then wealth, then 
wit to guide them.” 1 
The continuous regimental record of the Brome family extends from 
anno 1698 to 1830—a period of one hundred and thirty-two years; and 
although other members of this family attained to high distinctions in 
1 Carlyle’s Review of Sir Walter Scott’s “Life of Robert Daily, the Covenai 
6. VOL. XX. 
