George Browne, 8th Viscount Montagu

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George Samuel Browne, 8th Viscount Montagu (born June 26, 1769 , † early October 1793 in Laufenburg ) was an English peer and tourist who died in a daring boat passage on the Grand Tour .

Life

The Laufen near Laufenburg 1785
The ruins of Cowdray House

George Samuel Browne was the 8th Viscount Montagu . In 1793, at the age of 24, he took a trip across the continent with his friend Sir Charles Sedley Burdett. In the then Upper Austrian town of Laufenburg, the two friends decided to cross the rapids called Laufen , a cataract of the Rhine that was blown up and flooded in 1908 , with a Weidling . A local skipper had already succeeded in doing this involuntarily at low tide. Despite the ban by the magistrateMontague and Burdett carried out their project in the first few days of October. The willow, which Montague and Burdett had specially covered with boards nailed against breakers, smashed against the rocks of Laufen. Lord Montague drowned while Burdett was still able to save himself with difficulty. According to other sources, he also drowned.

The week before, Lord Montague's ancestral home at Cowdray House in Sussex burned down as a result of the carelessness of a craftsman. The end of the Montagues in the direct line led to a local legend in England, according to which the Montagues were extinguished by fulfilling a family curse due to the appropriation of church property , the Battle Abbey by water and fire. The title of Lord of Montague passed on to a cousin George Samuels, an Anglican priest who died childless after a few years. Official documents about the accident have not been preserved in Laufenburg due to the turmoil of the following years. The exact date of the accident is also no longer known. In England, the much better known Rhine Falls are often wrongly named as the accident site .

family

He was the son of Anthony Browne, 7th Viscount Montagu (1728–1787) and Frances Falconer (1731–1814), widow of Alexander Falconer , 5th Lord Falconer of Halkertoun ; and daughter of Herbert Mackworth . His sister was Elizabeth Mary Browne (1767–1787), she married in 1794 William Stephen Poyntz MP, of Midgham, Berkshire.

Since he was unmarried and childless at his death, his title of nobility fell to his fourth uncle, Mark Browne, 9th Viscount Montagu (1744-1797).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sussex archaeological collections relating to the history and antiquities of the county, Volume 20, Sussex Archaeological Society, 1868, p. 206
predecessor Office successor
Anthony Browne Viscount Montagu
1787-1793 		Mark Browne
personal data
SURNAME Browne, George, 8th Viscount Montagu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Browne, George Samuel, 8th Viscount Montagu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English tourist and extreme sportsman
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1769
DATE OF DEATH October 1793
Place of death Laufenburg AG