Peter Nicholas Broun (17 August 1797 – 5 November 1846), known for most of his life as Peter Nicholas Brown, was the first

Colonial Secretary of Western Australia The colonial secretary of Western Australia was one of the most important and powerful public offices in Western Australia, in the time when Western Australia was a British colony. The colonial secretary was the representative of the British Col ...

, and a member of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

's first

Legislative Council A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the Brit ...

Early life

Peter Broun was born in

Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...

on 17 August 1797, son of William Broun, who was the brother of Sir James Broun, the 7th baronet of Colstoun and Thornydykes, and Nancy Mainguy. Peter Broun was descended from Sir George Broun, the 3rd baronet, who lived in two of the family estates, Thornydyke Castle and Bassendean, in

Berwickshire Berwickshire (; ) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in south-eastern Scotland, on the English border. The county takes its name from Berwick-upon-Tweed, its original county town, which was part of Scotland at the ...

. Broun spent his early life in Scotland as a gentleman clerk. In 1825 he married Caroline Simpson. They were to have three sons and five daughters.

Colonial Secretary

On 30 September 1828, Lieutenant-Governor James Stirling made a number of appointments to important public service positions for the planned

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

, including appointing Peter Broun to the position of Colonial Secretary at a salary of £400. Broun's appointment was on the recommendation of Sir George Murray,

Secretary of State for War and the Colonies The Secretary of State for War and the Colonies was a British cabinet-level position responsible for the army and the British colonies (other than India). The Secretary was supported by an Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Hist ...

, who was a close family friend of the Brouns. Broun sailed for the new colony with his wife and two children on board the , arriving in June 1829. Initially he worked out of a group of tents on

Garden Island A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...

, before transferring to a temporary building on the new site of

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, constructed by Broun with the intention of being his home. In 1832, the Colonial Secretary's office moved to more permanent quarters on the corner of

Hay Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticate ...

and Irwin Streets. Broun had brought livestock, equipment and furniture valued at more than £500, which entitled him to a grant of , which he took up in Upper Swan and West Guildford. The latter estate, which he named ''Bassendean'' after the

ancestral family estate, is now the suburb of Bassendean. The neighbouring suburb, Eden Hill, was named after

Eden Water Eden Water is a tributary of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders of Scotland. "Water" is the Lowland Scots term for a small river. The Eden Burn rises to the east of Lauder at Corsbie Moor on Boon Farm. The Eden Water passes Bassendean vi ...

, the river flowing through Bassendean, Berwickshire. In 1830, a

legislative council A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the Brit ...

was formed to help the governor to rule the colony, with the first sitting in 1832. As colonial secretary, Broun was automatically appointed to the council. The council met four times a month, and during Stirling's absence, from August 1832 to August 1834, Broun was particularly busy. He remained a member until his death. In addition to his duties as colonial secretary and clerk of the legislative council, he was also registrar for the colony and second in importance to the governor.

Broun the banker

As colonial secretary, Broun was initially responsible for managing much of the government's funds, and after an initial proposal to set up a government-backed colonial bank failed to materialise, when settlers needed to lodge their funds for safekeeping they naturally turned to him. Broun was entirely untrained in matters of

finance Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...

and

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

, and the large distances over which the colony was spread meant that cheques were often held for long periods of time. Payments to shipping companies by settlers for imports meant that hard currency became scarce and in January 1834 the government issued a limited number of £1 notes. This had the effect of raising suspicion against Broun's own promissory notes and by 1835, his makeshift bank had effectively collapsed, and

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

funds had to be used to settle the matter. To repay the government, Broun sold out his entire estate at Bassendean, and assigned one quarter of his income to the government until the debt was repaid. Not all settlers were prepared to accept that Broun's failure as a banker was entirely innocent, for on 12 January 1836 he was verbally

assault In the terminology of law, an assault is the act of causing physical harm or consent, unwanted physical contact to another person, or, in some legal definitions, the threat or attempt to do so. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may ...

ed in the street by a settler named Will Shaw, who had previously been involved in a protracted dispute with Broun over the boundary between their grants. Shaw was fined for the assault, but went on to

slander Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making wikt:asserti ...

Broun throughout the town. Broun then brought a slander case against Shaw, which he won easily. The court case won Broun much public goodwill, for it showed that he had only agreed to act as banker for the good of the public, and that as soon as he had had to suspend payments he had sold his own estate to settle the debts.

Death

Broun first became ill in July 1846. After a brief recovery, he relapsed in August. He eventually died in Fremantle on 5 November 1846, and was buried in East Perth Cemetery. He was survived by his wife and a number of sons. A grandson, Frank Broun, later became Member for Beverley in the

Western Australian Legislative Assembly The Western Australian Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Western Australia, an Australian state. The Parliament sits in Parliament House, Perth, Parliament House in the Western Australian capi ...

, and, like his grandfather,

. His wife sailed for England in the which caught fire at sea and was destroyed. She was saved but Broun's diaries and papers which she had intended to have published in London were destroyed.

Brown or Broun

For most of his life, Broun spelled his surname ''Brown'', despite the fact that the family name had been spelled ''Broun'' for most of the family's history.

James Battye James Sykes Battye (1871–1954) was an Australian librarian who was the first chief librarian of the Victoria Public Library in Perth, Western Australia. He was a leading historian, librarian and public figure in Western Australia and also se ...

claimsThis claim of Battye is repeated in Bryan and Bray (1935), but no reference is given. that the entire family had changed the spelling of their surname to ''Brown'' in an attempt to avoid the consequences of an involvement in the

Jacobite rising of 1745 The Jacobite rising of 1745 was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the Monarchy of Great Britain, British throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. It took place during the War of the Austrian Succession, when the bulk of t ...

. The entire family, including Peter Broun, changed back to ''Broun'' in 1843. Although Broun lived for only a further three years, most current sources adopt the ''Broun'' spelling.

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Broun, Peter Nicholas 1797 births 1846 deaths Australian people of French descent Burials at East Perth Cemeteries Colonial secretaries of Western Australia Guernsey emigrants to Australia Members of the Western Australian Legislative Council Settlers of Western Australia 19th-century Australian politicians 19th-century Australian public servants