Richard Browne
Mayor of Oxford 1591/2, 1596/7, and 1602/3
Richard Browne (or Broune / Brown) (c.1635–1607) was an Oxford "brown-baker" who was admitted free as a Hanaster in the mayoral year 1559–60. On 13 February 1565/6 he married Margaret Gorton at All Saints Church.
Browne came on to the Common Council on 29 September 1566, and was appointed a Chamberlain in 1568 and a Bailiff in 1576.
On 9 July 1578 Brown was admitted by the Vice-Chancellor in his court to the right of making and selling bread.
In July 1587 Browne’s apprentice, Robert Nicholls, was admitted free.
On 14 December 1587 Browne was one of the twelve bakers bound in a bond of £20 each to sell "thirteen of bread to the dozen within the University." He was also one of the bakers found faulty for not observing the size appointed by the Vice-Chancellor and the Clerks of the Market, and was fined a dozen loaves of bread, to be distributed among the poor.
In 1588 Browne was elected on to the Mayor’s Council of Thirteen, and appointed Millmaster for the year.
In September 1591 Browne was appointed Mayor for the first time. During his term of office he travelled to London to give the Lord Chamberlain (the new Steward elect) with a piece of plate and some gloves and his patent sealed with the Common Seal of the City of Oxford. Queen Elizabeth I also visited the city during his mayoralty: on Friday 22 September 1592, after being attended by the Vice-Chancellor on behalf of the University,
Hir Majestie, with the Nobility, and the rest of hir royal traine, going towards the city, was, within half a mile, received by the Maior of Oxford and his brethren, with a short speech delivered by their recorder.
In September 1596 Browne was elected Mayor for a second time, and the following March:
"Hit is agreed that Richard Morgan, taylor, shall have the roome of a bayliffe gratis at the request of Mr Mayor in respect that Mr Mayor did not make any man free for his gilt peny in the first tyme of his mayoraltie."
Browne was made an Alderman after his second term as Mayor.
Browne was elected Mayor a third time in September 1602. King James I, the first Stuart monarch, succeeded to the throne the following March, and at the council meeting on 4 May 1603:
It is agreed that where by our charters Mr. Mayor and some other citizens are to serve the king’s Majestie in his buttrye at the feast of his Coronacion; These parties, viz. Mr. Alderman Goode, Mr. Alderman Bartholmewe, Mr. Thomas Harrys, Mr. Thomas Stone and Mr. William Dennington, baylliffs, and Mr. Henry Niccolls shall goe upp with Mr. Maior as citizens to serve in the place at the chardge of this cytie....
In the event, however, they did not go, as James issued a proclamation forbidding all persons except the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and twelve principal citizens of London to attend the ceremony for fear of spreading the plague, and the King and court went to Winchester the morning after the coronation. Browne’s wife Eleanor was buried at All Saints Church on 20 July 1603; five days later the Coronation went ahead without the presence of anyone from Oxford.
Browne was buried in All Saints Church on 10 July 1607.