Theophilus Browne

Theophilus Browne
Born	1763 Derby
Died	1835
Education	Christ's College, Cambridge
Occupation	Clergyman
Spouse(s)	Ann

Theophilus Browne (1763–1835) was a Unitarian clergyman who was born in 1763 in Derby, England. He had a varied career, with a congregation once paying him to leave a chapel. He also proposed that church funds could be improved using state lotteries.

Browne was born in Derby in 1763. He took holy orders after achieving the degrees of both a Bachelor and Master of Arts at Christ's College, Cambridge. He became a fellow of Peterhouse College on 15 July 1785 and he took up the college living of Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire in December 1793. He resigned after adopting the positions of the Priestley school of Unitarians.

Browne became minister of the presbyterian congregation at Warminster in 1800. In 1807 he left Warminster after quarrelling with the congregation there for the post of classical and mathematical tutor at Manchester College, York. At midsummer, 1809, Browne left York to become minister of the Octagon Chapel, Norwich. He had preached at Norwich as a candidate in the previous January, and appears to have dissatisfied the college authorities by doing so without notice to them. His ministry at Norwich was unhappy ; he is said to have magnified his office and not to have understood the dislike of his congregation to anything in the shape of a dogmatic creed. He took his stand upon his vested right to a small endowment, and was paid for his resignation at the end of 1810. He did not at once leave Norwich. A letter from him, dated Colgate, Norwich, 10 March 1812, appears in the Monthly Repository, in which he says he will be at liberty to take a congregation at the end of March, and offered to go on a six months' trial.

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