page_title: Richard Brown (captain)
section_title: Life and character
hierarchical_section_title: Richard Brown (captain) / Life and character
caption_attribution_description: English: Lines from a Robert Burns letter, Eglinton Woods, Irvine Burns Club, North Ayrshire, Scotland.
context_page_description: Richard Brown or Ritchie Broun in Scots was born in Irvine. He was a sea captain and a one time friend of Robert Burns who is credited by Burns as the being the person who "encouraged me to endeavour at the character of a Poet."
context_section_description: Richard Brown was born in Irvine, the son of a 'plain mechanic' named William Brown and his wife Jane Whinie. Richard had a wealthy patron who gave him a good education, but the patron died, dashing Brown's chances of bettering his situation in life. He went to sea, where after many ups and downs he ending up being robbed by an American privateer on the wild coast of Connaught. He had fought for the liberty of the Americans against the British, and the American struggle for freedom, obvious in the poet's early poems; the poet's sympathy for the colonists can at least in part be attributed to Brown. Later he became captain of a large West Indiaman, the Mary & Jean, belonging to the Thames and sailing to such destinations as Grenada in the southeastern Caribbean Sea.
  Burns describes him as "This gentleman's mind was fraught with courage, independence, magnanimity, and every noble manly virtue." Other views of Richard Brown was less charitable, such as: "That moral leper who spoke of illicit love with all the levity of a sailor". Gilbert Burns says of Robert's days in Irvine that he here "contracted some acquaintances of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been used to, whose society prepared him for overleaping the bounds of rigid virtue, which had hitherto restrained him". Robert himself stated that Brown's views on illicit love "did me a mischief".
  Richard Brown married Helen or Eleanora Blair, daughter of David Blair (b.1736) and Ann Muir of Girtridge Mill in Dundonald Parish, on 30 May 1785, and settled in Port Glasgow. The couple had six children, named Jean (christened 24/2/1786 in Dundonald parish), Anne (chr. 5/9/1788 at Girtrigg), William (5/8/1790), Eleonora (11/8/1792), Alexander (13/6/1796, to "Richard Brown Shipmaster in Port Glasgow and Helen Blair his spouse"), and David (28/8/1799), the last four all christened at Port Glasgow.
  In later life, Richard Brown became very respectable, and, although he is said by some to have quarrelled violently with Burns, the reason remains unknown as the poet's allegations that he had taught Burns the art of seduction were not published until four years after his death. When living at Port Glasgow he was noted to be interested in education and religion, with a hospitable, kind and generous nature. He was also keen on shooting.
caption: A Sunday in Eglinton Woods.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "E4600", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "E4600v1.1", "Image DateTime": "2012:04:08 15:28:39", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2288", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "6406", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "12491", "EXIF ExposureTime": "2/131", "EXIF FNumber": "61/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:04:06 14:58:29", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:04:06 14:58:29", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "52/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2280", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1280", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "6270", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "63", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "4E9CEFF0F27B4BA2BD412EADC7BFB450", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "3830"}