Augusta Browne Archives

The American composer Augusta Browne was not Lady Augusta Browne (1838–1909), ninth child and sixth daughter of Howe Peter [Browne], 2^nd Marquess of Sligo (1788–1845). A photograph of Lady Augusta Browne is frequently displayed and misidentified as an image of the composer. The two unrelated women were born in Ireland almost twenty years apart. Lady Augusta Browne sat for portraits and photographs because she was a member of the minor British peerage in Ireland. Her carte-de-visite from the 1860s belongs to the National Portrait Gallery in London. Lady Augusta Browne never married and led a quiet life in Westport, County Mayo.

Lady Augusta Browne
by Numa Blanc & Cie
albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s
NPG Ax46406

The image of Lady Augusta Browne in the Victorian-era photo does not depict the American composer.

See and Hear Music by Augusta Browne

By Bonny Miller

On November 20, 2023

In Augusta Browne

Where can I see sheet music by Augusta Browne? How can I hear music by Augusta Browne? These are the questions people ask most frequently about the composer. On the Music Editions page of this website, you will find links to open-access databases that include nineteenth-century imprints of music by Browne. The Music Editions page lists more than eighty music titles available online. The entries are arranged by genre (piano pieces; songs; hymns), then alphabetically by title.

Look for “Listen to the Music” links on the Music Editions page for online performances of music by Augusta Browne. Some renditions are recorded performances, others are audio files generated from Finale music notation software.

Who was J. W. B. Garrett?

By Bonny Miller

On April 26, 2023

In Posts

Who was J. W. B. Garrett, whom Augusta Browne married in September 1855, within weeks of first meeting him?

J. W. B. (John Walter Benjamin) Garrett was an artist who specialized in portraits, especially paintings made from small daguerreotypes, just as families today can commission a portrait to be painted from a photograph. Augusta Browne never revealed how they became acquainted. The connection might have occurred through an introduction at an art gallery, at church, a concert, or through mutual acquaintances at the Home Journal, in which Augusta published stories and Garrett advertised his services as a portraitist. Garrett exhibited a portrait of William Henry Browne, the composer’s younger brother, at New York City’s National Academy of Design in 1857. It seems plausible he would have made a portrait of his new wife, Augusta, but no evidence proves its existence.

Paper and Pen

By Bonny Miller

On July 3, 2022

In Posts

Introduction

The title page of The Lady’s Almanac for 1854 showcases a romanticized illustration of a lady writing with a quill pen at an ornate desk as time slips away in the winged hourglass.

Augusta Browne’s table and chair would have been far less grand than the engraving depicts, but she was already making contributions as a writer as well as a composer. On page 92, the almanac includes her name—lacking (as often happened) the final e of Browne—among noted American women writers.

Music, History, Women, and Heritage

Tag: Augusta Browne Page 1 of 4

Who was Lady Augusta Browne? Not the American Composer.

See and Hear Music by Augusta Browne

Who was J. W. B. Garrett?

Paper and Pen

Introduction