Potto Brown

Potto Brown (1797–1871) was a miller and nonconformist philanthropist in Huntingdonshire, England. He is commemorated by a statue in the village of Houghton where he was born, lived and died. Local schools and churches are a monument to his philanthropy.

Brown was born into a prominent Quaker family. He was the fourth of 12 children of William Brown and Elizabeth Hicks and was named after his paternal grandmother, Sarah Potto. Brown’s father was a baker and miller in Earith, moving to Houghton to run Houghton Mill on the River Ouse.

Brown was educated at Huntingdon Grammar School and Slepe Hall in St Ives, a school for about 75 boys many of whom came from dissenting families. He did not excel academically. "That which is conventionally called education left strangely few traces upon him." It was at Slepe Hall that Brown met his future business partner Joseph Goodman.

Upon leaving school Brown, together with Goodman, started work in his father’s mill. They took over the running of the mill in 1821 when William Brown retired. After his retirement William Brown took up medicine, attending lectures and hospital rounds in London and then becoming apprenticed to a local surgeon and apothecary, George Cockle.

In 1822 Brown married fellow Quaker Mary Bateman. They had several children of whom only two survived infancy. Bateman and George Brown followed their father into milling. Bateman Brown became mayor of St Ives, only the second nonconformist to hold the position since the time of Oliver Cromwell. One of Brown’s grandsons became the fourth generation of the family to run the mill at Houghton. A granddaughter married the artist Charles Whymper. A greatgrandson, Bateman Brown Tarring, won the London amateur 1-mile speed skating championship in December 1892.

Brown was widowed in 1854, remarried and was widowed again. He married for the third time in 1869.

Brown and Joseph Goodman built up a thriving milling business. "Brown and Goodman" of Houghton Flour Mills employed eighteen men and produced a flour whose reputation was well known in London. Brown worked on the principle that the best flour came from a combination of careful blending of wheat and the use of the best milling machinery. Known as a "slow grinder", he spared no expense on his millstones. Having established a friendship with the French miller Auguste-Rodolphe Darblay, Brown adopted the French millstone ventilation system and the French method of dressing millstones with black diamonds.

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