James Drysdale Brown (21 April 1850 – 5 April 1922) was an English-born Australian politician.
He was born in York to accountant John Brown and Jessie Gilmour. He grew up in France, being educated in Le Havre and Paris, and migrated to Victoria in 1862. He worked as a clerk from 1866 to 1873 and than as an accountant with the Bank of Victoria at Inglewood and St Arnaud. From 1877 he was a Colonial Bank branch manager. After contracting typhoid fever, he travelled around the Pacific and to England, where he studied law. In 1894 he was called to the Victorian Bar, but he worked mainly as a mining investor in the Maryborough district. In 1904 he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council for Nelson Province. A non-Labor member, he was Attorney-General and Solicitor-General from 1909 to 1913, and served as Minister of Mines, Forests and Public Health from 1913 to 1915. Brown died in Melbourne in 1922. His brother Vigor Brown was prominent in New Zealand politics.
References
- "James Drysdale Brown". Re-Member: a database of all Victorian MPs since 1851. Parliament of Victoria. Archived from the original on 23 April 2023. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
| Victorian Legislative Council | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded bySteuart Black | Member for Nelson 1904–1922 Served alongside: Hans Irvine; Edwin Austin; Thomas Miners; Theodore Beggs |
Succeeded byEdwin Bath |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded byJohn Davies | Attorney-General of Victoria & Solicitor-General of Victoria 1909 - 1913 |
Succeeded byWilliam Evans |
- 1850 births
- 1922 deaths
- Nationalist Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Victoria
- Members of the Victorian Legislative Council
- Ministers for health (Victoria)
- Vice-presidents of the Board of Land and Works
- Attorneys-general of Victoria
- Solicitors-general of Victoria
- British expatriates in France
- British emigrants to colonial Australia
- Ministers for forests (Victoria)
- Ministers of mines (Victoria)