Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Brenchley, Julius Lucius
BRENCHLEY, JULIUS LUCIUS (1816–1873), traveller and author, born at Kingsley House, Maidstone, on 30 Nov. 1816, was son of John Brenchley of Maidstone by Mary Ann, daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Coare of Middlesex. His mother's family was of French extraction, and her mother was a daughter of Edward Savage of Rock Savage, Cheshire. Brenchley was educated at the grammar school at Maidstone, subsequently entering St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1840. In 1843, after proceeding M.A., he was ordained to a curacy at Holy Trinity Church, Maidstone. Subsequently he held a curacy at Shoreham, Kent. In 1845 he travelled with his parents on the continent of Europe.
In 1847, on the death of his father, Brenchley entered on the career of a traveller, which he followed without intermission to 1867. In 1849 he visited New York and the United States, living a forest life among the Indian tribes; this was followed by a journey in 1850 up the Mississippi and Missouri to St. Joseph, and thence to Oregon and Fort Vancouver by way of the Rocky Mountains. Passing to the Hawaiian Islands, he met there another traveller, M. Jules Remy, in whose company he journeyed to California. From San Francisco he and Remy undertook an adventurous expedition to Utah and Salt Lake City, the results of which are embodied in a work compiled jointly by the travellers entitled 'A Journey to Great Salt Lake City,' 2 vols. 8vo, 1861. Returning to San Francisco, they crossed the Sierra Nevada to New Mexico. In 1856 the travellers visited Panama and Ecuador, and ascended the volcanoes of Pinchincha and Chimborazo, afterwards going to Peru, Chinchas Islands, and Chili. The year 1857 saw Brenchley and his companion again in the United States, where, after visiting the Canadian lakes, they descended the Mississippi from its source to Saint Louis. Ultimately reaching New York, they embarked there for England.
In 1858 and 1859 Brenchley explored Algeria, Morocco, Spain, and Sicily. In 1862 he went to the East, visiting the Nilgherries, Madras, Calcutta, the Himalayas, and Benares, subsequently returning to Calcutta. Leaving Calcutta in 1863, he went to Ceylon, and thence to China—visiting Shanghai, Nankin, Tientsin, and Pekin, in company with Sir Frederick Bruce—Mongolia, and Japan. After returning to China he visited Australia, and in 1864 travelled to New Zealand in company with Lieutenant the Hon. Herbert Meade, R.N. In this expedition Brenchley rendered services in regard to the submission of the Maoris, which were acknowledged by Sir George Grey [q. v. Suppl.], the governor. Shortly after this he went to Sydney, and cruised later on among the islands of the South Pacific Ocean, in company with Commodore Sir William Wiseman, and published an account of his cruise in 'The Cruise of the Curaçoa among the South Sea Islands in 1865.' The ethnographical objects collected from the various islands during the voyage were exhibited at Sydney, and a catalogue of them published there in 1865.
Shortly afterwards Brenchley went again to Shanghai, and made a second journey through China and Mongolia, reaching the hitherto almost unfrequented steppes of Siberia, which he traversed in the winter of 1866-7 in sledges. Crossing the Ural Mountains he pursued his journey, and reached Moscow and St. Petersburg in January 1867. He afterwards travelled about Poland, visiting Warsaw and the chief towns, and, having passed through a great part of the empire of Austria, arrived at Marseilles. Going thence to Paris, he was in that city when the Prussians first beleaguered it in 1870. Subsequently he settled down at Milgate House, near Maidstone, but in consequence of ill health removed to Folkestone in 1872, where he died on 24 Feb. 1873, aged 56 years. Brenchley was buried in the family vault at All Saints, Maidstone, He bequeathed the bulk of his large collections in ethnography, natural history, oriental objects, paintings, and library to the town of Maidstone, leaving also an endowment for their due preservation, and they are installed in the museum there, towards the enlargement of which he was a munificent donor. A marble bust of him, executed by J. Durham, R.A., and a portrait in oils by W. C. Dobson, R.A., also commemorate him in the Maidstone Museum.
[Brenchley's MSS. and private Journals in the Museum, Maidstone.]