1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Browne, Edward Harold

BROWNE, EDWARD HAROLD (1811–1891), English bishop, was born at Aylesbury and educated at Eton and Cambridge. He was ordained in 1836, and two years later was elected senior tutor of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. From 1843 to 1849 he was vice-principal of St David’s College, Lampeter, and in 1854 was appointed Norrisian professor of divinity at Cambridge. His best-known book is the Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles (vol. i., Cambridge, 1850; vol. ii., London, 1853), which remained for many years a standard work on the subject. In 1864 he was consecrated bishop of Ely, and proceeded to reorganize his diocese. He maintained that the deposition of Bishop Colenso endangered the independence of bishops. Nevertheless, he was opposed to Colenso’s criticism of the Bible, and replied to it in The Pentateuch and the Elohistic Psalms (1863), written from a conservative standpoint. In 1869 he was one of the consecrating prelates when Temple became bishop of Exeter, and endeavoured to remove the prejudice against his appointment by showing that Temple was not responsible for the views of other writers in the famous Essays and Reviews (1860). He was bishop of Winchester from 1873 till 1890, when ill-health compelled him to resign.