Matthews, Richard, 1946-

Epithet: Reverend of Wigton

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000758.0x000041

E. (Elliott) Martin Browne (1900-1980) was a British theatre director and writer. Born in Zeals, Wiltshire in 1900, Elliott Martin Browne was educated at Eton and Oxford where he studied History and Theology.

Following his graduation he worked as the religious drama advisor for Kent county council. In 1924 he married Henzie Raeburn, with whom he had two sons. She was involved in his work and appeared in some of his productions. In the 1920s he worked for a time as warden of an educational settlement in Doncaster and was later appointed Assistant Professor of Drama at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (USA).

Returning to England in 1930 Browne began work as the director of religious drama of Chichester. A collaboration between Browne and T.S. Eliot at the request of George Bell (Bishop of Chichester) produced Murder in the Cathedral, which after playing at the Canterbury Festival transferred to London and enjoyed a successful run which lasted almost an entire year. The two would continue this working relationship for the next 20 years, with Eliot as poet-playwright to Browne’s director. Browne succeeded Bishop Bell as President of RADIUS, the Religious Drama Society of Great Britain.

In 1939 Browne directed Eliot’s The Family Reunion in London and with help from the Arts Council launched his own touring theatre company; The Pilgrim Players. They toured until 1948 with a repertoire dominated by the works of Eliot.

In 1945 Browne took over the running of the Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill and spent the next three years directing modern verse plays there, including works by Christopher Fry. From 1948 to 1957 he was director of the British Drama League, and in 1951 became the director of the first major production of the York Mystery Cycle since the sixteenth century, a job he repeated in 1954, 1957 and 1966.

Browne spent some of the 1960s as drama advisor to Coventry Cathedral, and directed the medieval mystery plays there in 1962 and 1964, later working as director at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford. He was appointed a CBE in 1952 and remarried in 1974 following the death of Raeburn. He died in 1980.

From the guide to the Richard Matthews Collection of E. Martin Browne Materials, 1920s - 1970s, (V&A Department of Theatre and Performance)