Hugh Brown was a Fellow of the Incorporation of Surgeons at the time when the Incorporation held its meetings at a building in Curriehill - currently the High School Yards, just inside the Edinburgh’s Flodden Wall. He was one of the members who pledged £100 towards the building of a new convening house which was to become the first Surgeon’s Hall in Surgeons Square and which was completed in 1697. He was appointed Chirurgeon Apothecary to King James VII of Scotland and II of England in 1688.
Brown was a victim of the religious intolerance which was widespread in Scotland in the years following the Reformation. In 1695 he was rebuked by the Government for simply attending a Roman Catholic service. Brown, and his son James, were required to give an assurance “of their doing nothing offensive to the Government in future, or else to be kept in prison”.
Further reading
Chambers Domestic Annals; vol iii; p108, 109 and 130
