[1] The hospital was founded in 1781 by Susan Carnegie as the Montrose Lunatic Asylum, Infirmary & Dispensary and obtained a Royal Charter in 1810.

He regarded public education as part of his duties, and gave a series of lectures which became enormously popular and influential.

In 1837, five lectures were published together under the title What Asylums Were, Are and Ought To Be;[3][4] this book came to the attention of the Dumfries philanthropist Elizabeth Crichton.

She travelled to Montrose, interviewed Browne and offered him the equivalent post at the Crichton Royal in Dumfries.

[6] In 1858, a new improved asylum designed by William Lambie Moffatt[7] was completed to the north of Montrose in the village of Hillside on lands of the farm of Sunnyside and the old site was vacated.