The Brownes were believed to have been descended from John Le Brun, the Dean of the College of the Chapel in the Field, which owned the advowson of St George Tombland. William Browne was mayor and lived in what is now the Samson and Hercules house on Tombland.
1599 William Browne apprenticed to Thomas Pettus, draper (Evans, John T. “The Decline of Oligarchy in Seventeenth-Century Norwich.” Journal of British Studies, vol. 14, no. 1, 1974, pp. 46–76. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/175059. Accessed 22 Mar. 2025.)
William Browne married Judith (Havers?)
1601 William Browne admitted to the freedom of Norwich as a draper
1610 William and Judith’s son William born and baptized at St George Tombland
1612 son William buried at St George Tombland
1613 daughter Judith baptized at St George Tombland
1613 took an apprentice Thomas Belson, draper
1615 son William baptized at St George Tombalnd
1616 Sheriff of Norwich. Altercation with High Sheriff regarding attendance upon the Judges of Assize. Judges ordered that in future the High Sheriff should attend the Judges when about county business and the city sheriff only when about city business. Whereupon “Will Browne did on horseback attend the Lord Chief Justice to the Guildhall and the High Sheriff the other Judge to the Castle”
1620 living in St George Tombland
1621 son John buried at St George Tombland
1630 took an apprentice Felix Forbym – alderman, draper
1630 Mayor of Norwich, living in Samson & Hercules House according to a map belonging to the Old Men’s Hospital. https://www.thegreathospital.co.uk/resources/look.html
1630 William Browne and his wife Judith sell to John Spendlove clerk and Francis Heyward gent, a messuage between the house occupied by Robert Tooley late of Richard Tooley alderman and citizen, in part, and a common lane called Prince Lane in part, (to the) N(orth); the pike wall, next garden of Richard Brice and others, late of Lawrence Wright, Robert Breckles and others on S(outh).; house in tenure of said Robert Tooley, late of the said Richard Tooly in part, and high street of Tombland in part, E(ast).; and stable and wall of — Powell, widow, late Roger Gaywood West.
1631 William and Judith’s daughter Judith marries Christopher Jay
1639 April – died, buried at St George Tombland
1639 will – £500 to Judith, his widow, to be paid by Christopher Jay, son in law, agreed in a deed in 1633, to pay to William, Judith and daughter Elizabeth. No mention of William b 1615 implies he had died by then?
Friends of Princes Street 