Life
Browning was born in London, the son of a merchant, William Shipton Browning, and educated at Eton College, where he was a pupil of William Johnson Cory and at King's College, Cambridge, where he became fellow and tutor, graduating fourth in the classical tripos of 1860, and where he was inducted into the exclusive Cambridge Apostles, a debating society for the Cambridge elite.
For fifteen years he was a Master at Eton College, until he was dismissed in the autumn of 1875. His parents' church, St. Andrew's, in Clewer, describes the reasons for his dismissal as "his injudicious talk, his favourites, and his anarchic spirit."
After Eton he returned to King's College, Cambridge, where he took up a life Fellowship and where he achieved a reputation as a wit, and became universally known as "O.B.". He traveled to India at George Curzon's invitation after the latter had become viceroy. He resumed residence in 1876 at Cambridge, where he became university lecturer in history. He soon became a prominent figure in college and university life, encouraging especially the study of political science and modern political history, the extension of university teaching and the movement for the training of teachers.
Browning served as principal of the Cambridge University Day Training College (1891-1909), treasurer of the Cambridge Union Society (1881-1902), founding treasurer of the Cambridge University Liberal Club (1885-1908), and president of the Cambridge Footlights (1890-1895).
He stood for Parliament three times as a Liberal: in Norwood in 1886, East Worcestershire in 1892, and West Derby in 1895.
He left Cambridge in 1908 and retired to Bexhill-on-Sea. In 1914 he was visiting Italy when World War I broke out. He decided to stay there and spent his later years in Rome, where he died in 1923 at the age of eighty-six.
He was a member of the Athenaeum, the Alpine Club, and the Bath Club.
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