Patrick Browne was born in 1907, the son of E. G. Browne, the noted Cambridge Orientalist, and Fellow of Pembroke College. Browne attended Eton College, before coming up to Pembroke in 1925 to study Law. He was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1931. The same year, he married Evelyn Sophie Alexandra (died 1966), daughter of the archaeologist Sir Charles Walston. They had two daughters. After Evelyn's death, he married Lena Atkinson in 1977 (died 2009). Browne joined the Royal Horse Artillery at the outbreak of World War II, he rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and was awarded an OBE (Military Division) in 1945. After the War he returned to Law, becoming a Queen's Counsel in 1960. In 1965, he was appointed a Justice of the High Court and assigned to the Queen's Bench Division. He was made a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1974. In 1975 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College. He died in 1996.