BROWNE, John (1696-1750), of Forston, in Charminster, Dorset, and Lincoln’s Inn, London.

John Browne, a Tory lawyer, and standing counsel to the East India Company, was returned four times for Dorchester on his family’s interest, voting against the Administration in all recorded divisions, except on the motion for the removal of Walpole in February 1741, when he was one of the Tories who withdrew. He spoke in favour of the seamen’s bill in January 1741.1See WAGER, Sir Charles. On 29 Feb. 1744, ‘though a Tory’, he followed Pitt and Lyttleton in walking out of the House during Lord Barrington’s speech to defer the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act against the threatened French invasion.2Yorke’s parl. jnl. Parl. Hist. xiii. 673. Shortly before his death, 25 Apr. 1750, he was put down by the Prince and his chief advisers as a commissioner for the great seal on the Prince’s accession.3Add. 47097.