Ernest Prideaux Brune
(1839-1868)

[This sitting does not appear in the Silvy daybooks in the archives of the National Portrait Gallery. Presumably the sitter visited the studio between July 1863 and June 1864, the period covered by the missing daybook.]

Ernest Augustus Prideaux Brune was born on 17 June 1839, the second son of Charles Prideaux Brune (1798-1875) of Prideaux Place, Padstow, Cornwall, and Berkeley Square, London. His mother was Frances Mary née Glynn. 

He attended Christ Church, Oxford, but did not graduate. In 1859 he joined the 29th Regiment of Foot as an Ensign (by purchase). He appears on the 1861 census as a Lieutenant camped with his regiment at Farnborough in Hampshire. He retired from the Army in February 1864. 

On 21 September 1864, he married Francis Josling Prior, daughter of George Sayle Prior, the Rector of St Breock in Cornwall. The marriage produced a daughter in 1865 and a son in 1867. 

Ernest Augustus Prideaux Brune died, aged 29, on 22 January 1868 at 20 Charles Street, Mayfair, and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetry on 27 January 1868. According to his death certificate, the cause of death was 'Epileptic Convulsions / Schirrhus Tumour of the Mesenteric Gland.' He left an estate valued at £16,000 subsequently resworn in 1876 at £30,000. 

Mrs Fannie P. Brune appears on the 1871 census, a widow living with her daughter Francis and son George at Glentor, Northam, Devon. She never remarried and died a widow still in 1933. 

[See page 39 of this section for Silvy portraits of Ernest's parents.]