Born 13 April 1850 in Manchester, the elder son of Henry Browne, MD (1819-1901), physician to Manchester Royal Infirmary, and Ann, his wife daughter of George Hadfield, MP for Sheffield. Henry Browne's father and grandfather had practised at Manchester since the latter, George Buckston Browne (1756-

John Boulton was born in Taihape, central North Island, the third son of Edward Clive Boulton and Mary Patricia Reade, the family farming in the King Country south of Te Kuiti. He had two older brothers, David and Philip. In 1947 the family shifted to Palmerston North where John commenced school, fi