Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Excerpt from Blood Sweat and Fears: Medical Practitioners and Medical Students of South Australian who Served in World War 1. Courtesy of the Authors

Denby de Courcey (Den) Browning was born on the 28th June 1884 in Carlton, Victoria, the son of William Browning and his wife Elizabeth Alice, nee Hutchinson. He was educated at Carlton College and Queen’s College, where he won a Blue for football. He studied medicine at Melbourne University and graduated in 1911. After graduation he moved to South Australia and entered general practice at Ardrossan.  The Ardrossan Vigilance Committee on the 16th May 1913, met and discussed the necessity for a cottage hospital. They eventually secured the services of Browning who was elected to the first Board of Management for the hospital, which was completed on 31st May 1914 and was opened for business by Browning. The first nursing sister was Miss Edie Burt. When Browning enlisted for the War he left the Hospital unattended. His sister Alice was furious as she had left Melbourne to housekeep for him. However she met and married W H Cane whose father, C G R Cane, was a prominent member of the local council and also instrumental in the building of the new Hospital. Browning was also a member of the Ardrossan Cricket Club and made 84 in a game against Balaklava (the Preston Cricket Club) on the 22nd January 1915.

Browning was commissioned on the 26th March 1915, and posted to 4 LHFA.  He was 30 years old, single, with previous experience in the Junior Cadets. He was 6ft, 161lbs, 35-38ins chest with normal vision. He embarked from Adelaide on board HMAT Borda on the 23rd June 1915. He embarked with Samuel Roy Burston and Walter John Westcott Close. When the unit was disbanded in Egypt, Browning was first posted to 2 AGH, then in March 1916 to 46 Bn as RMO. He served with the Bn in France until September when he was posted to 12 FdAmb. He also had a short attachment to 4 FdAmb, but in December 1916 he was evacuated sick to England. He proved to have pulmonary tuberculosis, and after a few months at 3 AAH at Dartford he was returned to Australia in September 1917 into the 4MD.  Whilst at the AAH he was promoted to Major to date from 27th April 1917. His appointment was terminated on the 9th October 1917. He was issued with the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

He resumed his practice at Ardrossan where another doctor had arrived and, in 1918, moved to Maitland on the Yorke Peninsula, later to Blackwood and then North Terrace, Adelaide.  His wife was from Sydney and the family moved to Burwood, NSW in the height of the depression in 1929, where his wife Elizabeth died on the 6th April 1936 leaving him a widower with two children. He re-married on the 10th July 1937 at St. Jude's, Randwick to Constance Geraldine Saunders, of Adelaide. Browning became an honorary physician at the Western Suburbs Hospital in Sydney. Denby de Courcey Browning died on the 20th December 1942 when he was living at 27 Belmore Street, Burwood. Newspaper tributes were posted from the wide family and the members of the Burwood Bowling Club. He was survived by his wife Constance Geraldine Browning and children Thomas Oakley (1920-98) and Elizabeth. During WW2 Dr Thomas Oakley Browning was a Sgt in the 2/18th Bn, and a Prisoner of War in Changi Prison and an eminent scientist at the Waite Institute, Adelaide.