People Australia

John Brown was a marine in the 11th (Portsmouth) Company. He arrived in Sydney in 1788 aboard the Scarborough as part of the First Fleet. He had a daughter, Rebekah, with Susannah Allen in 1789. Rebekah died in childbirth and his daughter, who had been looked after by another woman convict, died the next year. On 5 June 1789 Brown had been sent to Norfolk Island. He became a settler there in 1792, taking 60 acres at Phillsburg, but returned to New South Wales after becoming troublesome, and joined the NSW Corps. He served with the corps until 1797.

In 1801 Brown held 50 acres with 31 cleared. He is probably the John Brown granted 160 acres in the Mulgrave Place district in 1804. Two years later he held 95 acres at 'Branch'. He married Judith Lightly in 1811; no record of children have been found. In his will, Brown left his Lower Portland farm to his wife and two adopted children, John Brown Herps and Catherine Byrne ('only daughter of the late Patrick Byrne'). Brown died on 27 August 1840 and was buried on his farm.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 52