John Browning (c. 1831 – 14 December 1925) was an English inventor and manufacturer of precision scientific instruments in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

John Browning was born around 1831 in Kent, England, the city recorded variously as Bexley or Welling.

It has been speculated that his shop inspired that of the character Solomon Gills, the ship's instrument maker, in the 1848 novel Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens.

However, he decided to change the nature of the business, due to increasing competition in the making of nautical instruments.

[6][10][12][13] John Browning installed the first electric light in London, the occasion being a banquet to honour the Shah of Persia during his visit to Queen Victoria.

[15] It was during the 1873 trip that the mayor and the Corporation of the City of London gave a banquet in the Shah's honour.

Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone arranged for the queen to entertain the Shah during the 1873 visit.

The elaborate preparations for the banquet included not only the costly lighting scheme, but also a gilded, illustrated menu (pictured).

[18] In the late 19th century, scientists were interested in the rainband for its potential in the detection of atmospheric water vapour and, therefore, the prediction of rain.

[18] Scottish astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth supported the contention that water vapour bands could be used to predict rainfall in the 22 July 1875 issue of Nature.

[19] Browning also attached spectroscopes to telescopic equipment, garnering the attention of astronomical physicists J. Norman Lockyer and William Huggins.

[9][20][21] Browning wrote many articles for the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, including a series on Jupiter's equatorial belt about 1870.

While the delay was only partially responsible for Lockyer's missed opportunity, there is evidence that Browning long regretted his reluctance to part with the spectroscope in question.

[22] Toward the late 1860s, in his quest to produce telescopes for a growing market, Browning collaborated with George Henry With (1827–1904), former schoolmaster at the Blue Coat School in Hereford.

[9][22] By the early 1870s, practical optics had become John Browning's primary interest, and he listed his occupation as optician on the census records from 1871 to 1901.

In 1871, he constructed the first wind tunnel, located in Greenwich at Penn's Marine Engineering Works.

It had been designed by another member of the Aeronautical Society, British engineer Francis Herbert Wenham.

He lived with his wife Charlotte, sister Emma, and daughter Maria Browning, as well as stepdaughters Florence and Gertrude Hotten.

[29] He married Annie Woolley, a spinster whose place of birth and residence at the time of their marriage was Chapel Hill in Monmouthshire, Wales.

[29] In 1891, the year following their marriage, John and Annie Browning resided in Clapham, with his profession again recorded as optician.

John Browning retired from his profession by 1905, and moved to Chislehurst on the outskirts of London, by some accounts.

[7] He died in the registration district of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire in 1925, with his death registered in the fourth quarter of the year.