Thomas Brown (prison architect)

Thomas Brown (12 April 1806 – 23 August 1872) was a Scottish architect operating throughout Scotland in the mid-19th century, primarily involved with prison design.

Thomas trained first under Thomas Brown and then under William Burn in Edinburgh, and his early work show much stylistic influence from Burn.

In 1837 he received a very prestigious appointment as architect to the Prison Board of Scotland, a newly formed board tasked with replacing many ancient and ruinous tolbooths and prisons with new and generally larger facilities, partly inspired by the hugely successful prison for Napoleonic prisoners of war at Perth, which was quickly converted to standard prison use after that war, and was held as an exemplar.

The production of prisons in the 1840s was huge, each working to a reasonably simple formula in design terms.

In the same year Brown married Helen Neill, and they lived at 27 Royal Terrace on Calton Hill.