Charles Brown (Taranaki) - Personal Life

Personal Life

Brown was born in London, England, the illegitimate son of Charles Armitage Brown (the close friend and biographer of the poet John Keats) and Abigail O'Donohue, an Irish house servant at Wentworth Place where Brown and Keats resided. However, Brown claimed later in life that his parents were married in a Catholic service in Ireland in August 1819, but this claim seems to be discounted by biographers as merely an attempt to cover up his illegitimacy, which was a social stigma in those times.

At age two, his father took him to Italy where they lived for a number of years, initially in Pisa and later in Florence. Brown received all his early education in Italy from his father. In his writings his father refers to his son by the name "Carlino" and this appeared to be his name in common usage in England and Europe. In 1826 at age six, Carlino's portrait was painted by artist Joseph Severn, who had nursed John Keats in his final illness and was a close friend of his father.

Around 1836 in order to provide a better education for Brown, they returned to England and lived in Plymouth. Unlike his literary father, Brown had a more pragmatic nature and was attracted to civil engineering.

In 1840, his father became a shareholder in the newly formed Plymouth Company, which aimed to colonise New Plymouth, New Zealand. Shortly afterwards, his father's finances were ruined when he was forced to repay a friend's loan having agreed to be guarantor. With what little fortune remained to him, his father decided that they should immigrate to New Plymouth as a pioneer community would provide the best opportunities for son Charles as a civil engineer given their limited capital. At age 17, Brown junior immigrated on the Amelia Thompson, the first settler ship of the Plymouth Company arriving in 1841. His father followed on a second ship, arriving three weeks later on the Oriental.

Brown and his father lived on top of a hill near the mouth of Te Henui River, what is now the suburb of Welbourn. The short Brown Street in that area commemorates the family.

Brown's father died of an apoplectic stroke on 5 June 1842, only 8 months after his arrival in New Plymouth. He was buried on Marsland Hill above the original St Mary's church.

Charles Brown married twice. He married Margaret Joy Horne on 13 May 1851. He had 4 daughters (and a son who died as a baby) with his first wife and twin sons and a daughter with his second wife, Jessie Northcroft. His children from his first marriage included:

• Laura Brown (later Mrs Tobin)
• Jessie Brown (later Mrs Brown)
• Lucy Brown

and from his second marriage:

• William A. Brown
• Charles Keats Brown
• Mona Martha Brown (later Mrs Gordon Osbourne)