Major-General Sir James Browne (16 September 1839 – 13 June 1896), known as "Buster Browne", was a British

military engineer Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics ...

and administrator in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

Early life

Browne was born in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, the son of Dr Robert Browne, a

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

Falkirk Falkirk ( ; ; ) is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow. Falkirk had a resident population of 32,422 at the ...

, Scotland. His father had practised medicine in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

in the 1820s and 1830s, and there met his wife, who was the daughter of his patient, a Dutch merchant whose own English wife had recently died. He was educated in France and Germany and at

Cheltenham College Cheltenham College is a public school ( fee-charging boarding and day school for pupils aged 13–18) in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. The school opened in 1841 as a Church of England foundation and is known for its outstanding linguis ...

. He entered the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

's Military College at Addiscombe in February 1856, and received a commission in the

Bengal Engineers The Bengal Engineer Group (BEG) (informally the Bengal Sappers or Bengal Engineers) is a military engineering regiment in the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army. The unit was originally part of the Bengal Army of the East India Company's Ben ...

on 11 December 1857. He arrived in India in December 1859.

Career

He served in the expedition against the

Mahsud The Mahsud (), also spelled as Mehsud, Mahsood and others, is a Karlani Pashtun tribe inhabiting mostly the South Waziristan Agency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The Maseeds usually pronounce their name ''Māsīd''. They are divi ...

Waziris in 1860, being

mentioned in dispatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face of t ...

, and in 1863 in the Ambela Campaign, when he was three times mentioned. During the Ambela Campaign he was frequently employed as an interpreter, having become the first officer to pass examinations in Pashtoo. After the Campaign and until 1865, Browne became Executive Engineer of the

Kohat Division Kohat Division is one of the seven divisions in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It consists of five districts: Hangu, Karak, Kohat, Kurram, and Orakzai. The division borders Bannu Division to the south and west, Peshawar Divisio ...

employed with building forts. Thereafter he spent some months at Thomason College before returning to the Punjab as Executive Engineer at

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

. He subsequently spent three years at Kangra where he worked on the construction of 120 miles of mountain roads, and designing and building four bridges at Buneyr, Nigul, Dehree and Durom. In 1869 he was thanked for his work with the Dalhousie Road Project, for the rapid completion of the barracks and his management of the 2,000 European soldiers working on the construction. In 1871 he went on furlough and spent two year studying railways and iron bridge work in Europe and America. He returned to India in 1873 and was employed designing iron bridges in the

North-Western Provinces The North-Western Provinces was an Presidencies and provinces of British India, administrative region in British Raj, British India. The North-Western Provinces were established in 1836, through merging the administrative divisions of the Cede ...

. In 1874 he carried out an extensive scheme of water supply for Dalhousie. In January 1875 he became superintendent of works for the building of the

Indus The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans- Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northwest through the dis ...

bridge. He was praised for possessing a "rare combination of theoretical skill and practical talent". In 1876 he surveyed and laid out the first 70 miles of the railway from

Sukkur Sukkur is a city in the Pakistani province of Sindh along the western bank of the Indus River, directly across from the historic city of Rohri. Sukkur is the List of cities in Sindh by population, third largest city in Sindh after Karachi and H ...

Quetta Quetta is the capital and largest city of the Pakistani province of Balochistan. It is the ninth largest city in Pakistan, with an estimated population of over 1.6 million in 2024. It is situated in the south-west of the country, lying in a ...

. He also worked alone to submit a reconnaissance survey of the

Kacchi Plain The Kacchi Plains ( Sindhi: ڪچي ميدان, Balochi: کَچِّ سَتَیْ زَمِیمْ) or Bolan Plains, also known as Kach Gandava is a region located in Balochistan, Pakistan. The addition of the latter "gandava" is based on the name o ...

, and Mushkaf and Bolan passes up to Quetta. In 1877 he was promoted lieutenant-colonel, and in 1878–1879 accompanied Sir Donald Stewart as political officer during the

Second Anglo-Afghan War The Second Anglo-Afghan War (Dari: جنگ دوم افغان و انگلیس, ) was a military conflict fought between the British Raj and the Emirate of Afghanistan from 1878 to 1880, when the latter was ruled by Sher Ali Khan of the Barakzai dy ...

. He took part in several engagements, was mentioned in despatches, and received the CB. At the conclusion of the war, Browne went on furlough to Britain. Whilst in England, he read a paper on "The Retention of Candahar and the Defence of the North West Frontier" to the East India Association. On his return to India he took charge of railway reconnaissance in the

Central Provinces The Central Provinces was a province of British India. It comprised British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India, and covered parts of present-day Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states. Nagpur was the primary ...

, and his services earned him the thanks of the Indian government. In 1881 he became colonel, and in 1882 commanded the Indian engineer contingent sent to

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, being present at the

Battle of Tel el-Kebir The Battle of Tel El Kebir (often spelled Tel-El-Kebir) was fought on 13 September 1882 at Tell El Kebir in Egypt, 110 km north-north-east of Cairo. An entrenched Egyptian force under the command of Ahmed ʻUrabi was defeated by a British ...

during the

Anglo-Egyptian War The British conquest of Egypt, also known as the Anglo-Egyptian War (), occurred in 1882 between Egyptian and Sudanese forces under Ahmed ‘Urabi and the United Kingdom. It ended a nationalist uprising against the Khedive Tewfik Pasha. It ...

. For his services in Egypt he received the 3rd class of the Osmariieh Order and the Khedives Star. In 1884 he was appointed engineer-in-chief of the

Sind–Pishin State Railway The Sind–Pishin State Railway was the name of a broad gauge line that ran between Rohri, Sindh and Chaman, Balochistan. In 1886, the southern section of the Sind–Pishin State Railway was amalgamated with the Kandahar State Railway and seve ...

. In 1888 he was made a KCSI and in 1889 quartermaster-general for India. In 1892 he was appointed agent to the governor-general in

Baluchistan Balochistan ( ; , ), also spelled as Baluchistan or Baluchestan, is a historical region in West and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid region of de ...

, in succession to Sir

Robert Groves Sandeman Sir Robert Groves Sandeman, KCSI (1835–1892) was a British Indian Army officer and colonial administrator. He was known for his activities in Balochistan, where he introduced a system of "tribal pacification" that endured until the partition ...

, his intimate experience of the Baluchis, gained during his railway work, having specially fitted him for this post.

Personal life

In 1864 Browne married Alice Pierson, daughter of Charles Pierson and sister of Major William Henry Pierson.Vibart 1894, p. 643.

Death

Browne died suddenly in the morning of 13 June 1896 in Quetta. He was granted a state funeral, including a procession and thirteen gun salute, and buried that same evening. The cause of death was certified to be a haemorrhage from the bowels.

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Browne, James 1839 births 1896 deaths British Indian Army generals British military personnel of the Second Anglo-Afghan War British military personnel of the Anglo-Egyptian War British civil engineers Knights Commander of the Order of the Star of India Companions of the Order of the Bath Burials at Brompton Cemetery British military personnel of the Umbeyla Campaign Bengal Engineers officers People educated at Cheltenham College Graduates of Addiscombe Military Seminary 19th-century British engineers 19th-century British Army personnel British people in colonial India