Browning's family held shipping interests, which in September 1844 at the age of just thirteen, would lead to him travelling to the East Indies.
[2] In 1857, Browning entered the New Zealand Government Service as an assistant surveyor and draughtsman with the Canterbury Public Works Department.
[1] He later became District and Mining Surveyor, and set up the Survey Department in Hokitika.
[3] In 1864–65, at the commencement of the gold rush era on the West Coast, John Browning and others were sent to explore the passes over the Main Divide in the Southern Alps with the object of finding a practicable route for a road.
Browning was part of an exploring party along with Richard James Strachan Harman (after whom Harman Pass is named), and J. J. Johnstone,[4] who in April 1865 negotiated the pass on the basis of information supplied by an elderly Maori man living in Kaiapoi.