[John Hutton Balfour]. English jurist and legal writer, born in Dumfries, Scotland, on the 13th of September 1845; educated at Dumfries Academy and Edinburgh University; called to the bar by the Middle Temple in June 1870. As a specialist Mr. Browne became well known by his Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity (1870) and The Law of Carriers (1874), a masterly work which secured for him the appointment of registrar and secretary to the Railway Commission. In 1874 he published The Law of Rating, and in 1880 The Law of Railways, both of which became standard legal textbooks. His legal practice was principally at the Parliamentary bar, where he was esteemed the leading authority on gas and water bills. Mr. Browne made an excursion into fiction in 1870; his For Very Life was praised by Lord Beaconsfield; a second novel was dedicated to his neighbor, Thomas Carlyle.
