He was well educated, studying at the Ecole de Médecine, Paris and qualified for the medical profession at the University of Edinburgh.

Browne migrated to South Australia in 1840 with his sister Anna, arriving aboard the Orleanna.

There he took up land, initially at Lyndoch in the Barossa Valley, and in 1844 was asked by Charles Sturt to join his expedition to Central Australia as surgeon.

[1][2] He afterwards became a highly successful pastoralist and held an enormous amount of land in South Australia.

In his later years he lived for long periods in England, and died in Bath.