Richard Brown (1753 – 1833) or Ritchie Broun in Scots was born in Irvine. He was a sea captain and a one time friend of Robert Burns who is credited by Burns as the being the person who "encouraged me to endeavour at the character of a Poet."

Richard Brown was born in Irvine, the son of a 'plain mechanic' named William Brown and his wife Jane Whinie. Richard had a wealthy patron who gave him a good education, but the patron died, dashing Brown's chances of bettering his situation in life. He went to sea, where after many ups and downs he ending up being robbed by an American privateer on the wild coast of Connaught. He had fought for the liberty of the Americans against the British, and the American struggle for freedom, obvious in the poet's early poems; the poet's sympathy for the colonists can at least in part be attributed to Brown. Later he became captain of a large West Indiaman, the Mary & Jean, belonging to the Thames and sailing to such destinations as Grenada in the southeastern Caribbean Sea.

Burns describes him as "This gentleman's mind was fraught with courage, independence, magnanimity, and every noble manly virtue." Other views of Richard Brown was less charitable, such as: "That moral leper who spoke of illicit love with all the levity of a sailor". Gilbert Burns says of Robert's days in Irvine that he here "contracted some acquaintances of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been used to, whose society prepared him for overleaping the bounds of rigid virtue, which had hitherto restrained him". Robert himself stated that Brown's views on illicit love "did me a mischief".

Richard Brown married Helen or Eleanora Blair, daughter of David Blair (b.1736) and Ann Muir of Girtridge Mill in Dundonald Parish, on 30 May 1785, and settled in Port Glasgow. The couple had six children, named Jean (christened 24 February 1786 in Dundonald parish), Anne (chr. 5 September 1788 at Girtrigg), William (5 August 1790), Eleonora (11 August 1792), Alexander (13 June 1796, to "Richard Brown Shipmaster in Port Glasgow and Helen Blair his spouse"), and David (28 August 1799), the last four all christened at Port Glasgow.

In later life, Richard Brown became very respectable, and, although he is said by some to have quarrelled violently with Burns, the reason remains unknown as the poet's allegations that he had taught Burns the art of seduction were not published until four years after his death. When living at Port Glasgow he was noted to be interested in education and religion, with a hospitable, kind and generous nature. He was also keen on shooting.

Robert Burns lived in Irvine during the years 1781–1782, at the age of 23, (1759–1796) for a period of around 9 months, whilst learning the craft of flax-dressing from his mother's half-brother, Alexander Peacock, working at the heckling shop in the Glasgow Vennel. During this time he made a number of acquaintances, befriended several locals and in particular struck up a lasting friendship with Richard Brown, with whom he took regular walks into the Eglinton Woods via the old Irvine-to-Kilwinning toll road and the Drukken or Drucken (Drunken) Steps over the Red Burn and back via the site of Saint Brides or Bryde's Well at Stanecastle.

In his Autobiographical Letter to Dr Hunter, Burns says of this intimate friendship: "I formed a bosom friendship with a young fellow, the first created being I had ever seen, but a hapless son of misfortune." "I loved him, I admired him to a degree of enthusiasm; and I strove to imitate him. In some measure I succeeded: I had the pride before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels. His knowledge of the world was vastly superiour to mine, and I was all attention to learn. He was the only man I ever saw who was a greater fool than myself when WOMAN was the presiding star; but he spoke of a certain fashionable failing with levity, which hitherto I had regarded with horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief, and the consequence was, that soon after I resumed the plough."

Upon hearing of this, Richard Brown is said to have commented that:"Illicit love! Levity of a sailor! When I first knew Burns he had nothing to learn in that respect." The now married Brown, settled with children and respectable members of society in Port Glasgow, took Burns's comments regarding womanising very badly and this resulted in an enmity that lasted until Burns's death. Mackay and others however point out that the letter that made the insinuations was not published until 1800, four years after Burns' death and whatever the cause of the death of their friendship was, it was not this.