CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22421, 18 May 1936, Page 12

CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN

Sir. —In your Saturday's supplement there is an article by M. H. Holcroft where he says he does not know* the luirial place of Charles Armitage Brown, the friend of Keats, who eanio to New Plymouth in 1841. It is interesting to recall that for over .75 years the site of the grave was lost, but it was eventually located by Mr. W. H. Skinner, a noted authority on Taranaki history, who had been superintending the search for the slab which was placed over the grave, but which had become covered with earth when Marsland Hill was escarped and fortified during the Maori war of 1855. Old settlers said that why Charles Armitage Brown was buried on Marsland Hill instead of in the old English Church cemetery at New Plymouth was because of his unorthodox views on religion. Tho wheels of time, however ordained it that the great-grand-son should be a preacher of the faith which his ancestor sought to supplant by a less spiritual creed, for in the early 'forties tho religious views of Charles Armitage Brown did not find favour with most of the sturdy pioneers who brought their Bibles and prayerbooks with them to this new country. The great-grandson, tho Bev. Charles Tobin, died after the war, to which he went as chaplain to the main body of the forces, and was absent from New Zealand for four years. His great-grand-father was the friend of Keats and Hunt. lufndor and Byron. His grandfather, Major Charles Brown, was the lirst superintendent of Taranaki. His mother was Miss Laura Brown, who married his father. \V. H. Tobin. All of them were distinguished linguists, and Major Brown was a fine Maori scholar. His grandson followed in his footsteps and at the time of his death had charge of the Maori College near Masterton. « W. K. Howitt.