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Photograph
Printed on porcelain, William Blackall Browne, emigrant to Australia, and family, c.1890.
Black and white photograph, printed on porcelain, featuring William Blackall Browne, seated on a stool, his wife, Mary Jane Moran, standing and holding an infant, James Moran Browne balanced on the back of a chair; a second child, William Blackall Browne, is seated on the same chair. Portrait style.
William Blackall Browne of Dromellihy, County Clare became an apprentice carpenter to Michael Enright of Kilrush, in May 1876.
Once qualified, Browne emigrated in about 1880 to the United States, but did not settle there and instead, travelled on to Australia, where he found employment as a coach builder in Queensland. Later, he left the trade, married, and by 1887 was the proprietor of several hotels. By the 1890’s his wife had died in childbirth, and with the economy in depression he retired from hotel life, returning to carpentry and coachbuilding. He married a second time, and when he died in Rockhamption, Queensland on 15th January 1934, he was the father of three sons and three daughters.
The youngest of these sons, Kevin, is the father of Patricia Mary Brady, Hahndorf, South Australia, and Joanne Margaret Browne, Paddington, Queensland. These sisters have donated this photograph and other objects relating to Browne to Clare Museum.
Category: Visual Representation