Dates

• Existence: 1862 - 1926

Biography

Edward Granville Browne (1862-1926) was born in Gloucestershire the eldest of nine children and educated at preparatory schools and, for less than a year, at Eton, which he left in 1876 shortly after he turned 15. He then attended Newcastle College of Physical Sciences and Pembroke College Cambridge.

During his time in Newcastle Browne began studying Turkish, his interest piqued by news reports of the ongoing Russo-Turkish War (1877-78). While at Cambridge he studied Persian and Arabic alongside the natural sciences tripos, which he passed in 1882. After spending the summer in Constantinople he returned to Cambridge and completed the Indian languages tripos in two years. Browne then resumed his medical training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London and gained his MB in 1887. While in London he would regularly converse with Persians and consult Persian texts in the British Museum. It was during this period that Browne first became aware of Mirza Ali Muhammad, the Bab, founder of the Bábi Faith, the story of which as described by Count Gobineau fascinated him.

After being elected a fellow of Pembroke College, Browne was able to spend a year in Persia, visiting Tehran, Tabriz, Esfahan, Shiraz, Yazd and Kerman. He actively sought out the company of mystics, dervishes, Kalandars and Bábis. Upon his return, Browne published two translations of Bábi histories, A Travellers Narrative, Written to Illustrate the Episode of the Bab (1891), and The New History of Mirza ‘Ali Muhammad, the Báb, Translated from the Persian (1893), adding long and detailed introductions and explanatory notes to both volumes. 1892 also saw Browne publish his travel memoir A Year Amongst the Persians, which, although underappreciated during his lifetime, gained classic status after his death, offering as it does one of the earliest European eyewitness accounts of Persian life and society. As well as being a highly gifted linguist, Browne had an exceptional memory, being able to recall long after the event whole conversations in exact detail, which adds to the atmosphere and authenticity of the work. Browne portrayed the Persians non-judgementally and in detail, offering personal and honest accounts of their habits and customs, some of which may have been shocking to his audience, for example he offers a frank account of the effects of opium.

Browne next began to focus his attention on the study of Persian literature and he published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society details of his new approach for the subject. Browne pushed for the publication of scholarly editions of classical Persian texts, tazkirehs (biographical dictionaries) first, then moving on to unpublished divans and histories. These became the kernel of his seminal A Literary History of Persia, which was published in four volumes in 1902, 1906, 1920 and 1924. It is considered a supreme work of scholarship which redefined the field of Persian literary and historical scholarship, and is still regarded as a standard authority in the field.

Browne delivered the FitzPatrick lectures in 1919 and 1920 at the Royal College of Physicians. These were published as Arabian Medicine in 1921 and show Browne combining both his areas of expertise. Browne was also responsible for cataloguing the Islamic manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library as well as those held by some of the Cambridge college libraries, and two collections held at the India Office Library.

Browne’s friend Elias John Wilkinson Gibb died in 1901, having only published one volume (of six planned) of his A History of Ottoman Poetry. Browne took it upon himself to edit and prepare the remaining five volumes for publication, this included verifying and identifying the original Turkish versions of many of the poems which appear in translation. Gibb’s mother, Jane, bequeathed a fund to be used for the publication of texts and translations of Turkish, Arabic and Persian books. Browne became a central figure in the E.J.W.Gibb memorial fund, and by the time of Browne’s death the fund had been responsible for publishing twenty-nine titles in over forty-four volumes. Because of his central role in this enterprise Browne was able to forge strong working relationships with nearly all the leading European orientalists of the time.

For much of his life Browne was very politically engaged, naturally with a focus on Middle Eastern and especially Persian affairs. After the breakout of the Persian revolution in 1906 Browne was one of the key figures in the formation of the Persia Committee along with socialist and radical Liberal MPs, fellow academics, journalists and writers. He campaigned between 1908-1914 in support of Persian constitutionalists; against the official British foreign policy of acquiescence to Russian influence and activities in Persia, and against the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907. However his campaigning was unsuccessful, and with the outbreak of World War One Browne effectively ceased all political activity. However he did publish two major works at this time, A History of the Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (1910), and The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia (1914).

Browne was to a large extent responsible for the creation of a school of living oriental languages in Cambridge, and trained many probationers for the Egyptian, Sudanese and Levantine civil and consular services. His teaching was highly regarded, as was his generosity toward impoverished students, war victims and refugees. Browne was awarded the Persian order of the Lion and Sun in 1900, made a fellow of the British Academy in 1903 and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1911.

Browne died on the 5th of January 1926 and is buried in Elswich cemetery, Newcastle upon Tyne.

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