Our friend Rich – the man who helped build the Internet: In memory of Richard Browning

Richard Browning from This is Money passed away suddenly last weekend at the age of 57, this is a tribute to our wonderful friend.

Richard Browning was one of the founders of This is Money in 1999.

He told people that this meant he was one of the few financial journalists who had lived through the rise and fall of the dotcom – and that it made him grow very old in the Internet years.

Yet, almost 25 years later, Rich was still at the forefront of every new This is Money venture and had never lost his enthusiasm for pushing us to try something new.

A man with a wicked sense of humor and natural comedic timing, Richard had the gift of bringing people together and making their days shine a little brighter.

As our development editor, he didn't write much – even though it was pure gold when he did – but worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make This is Money work as well as possible for readers.

If you've ever used one of our calculators, checked the savings tables, looked at a share pricelistened to the This is Money podcast and much more, you have Rich to thank.

Anyone who has ever read a This is Money story has Rich to thank for it.

His hard work, dedication and good humor are the foundations that have supported This is Money since day one.

But Richard's efforts extend far beyond that.

Our friend Rich was one of the men and women who built the Internet.

Now when we think of those who have done that and shaped our lives in the digital age, names like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk come to mind.

But beyond the billionaire barons are those with lower profiles – much less in the bank – who are just as important.

From today's vantage point, where mobile phones put the digital world in our pockets, it is easy to forget what a pioneer Richard Browning was who worked on a new financial website in 1999.

To put it in perspective, that was the first year I used the Internet at all, after starting college after a snowboarding season, when I was shivering in a phone booth in the French Alps and got my parents to call me back to talk to communicate with people at home.

By the time I started as a reporter at This is Money in late 2005, Rich had already played a crucial role in turning this website into a successful, award-winning website, with a range of tools and features to help people understand their finances and get involved. with them.

That was when I first met Rich, just over 18 years ago, and he became an instant friend who made me feel welcome in the difficult environment of my first job at a national newspaper.

We developed a shared love of music and travel, exchanging stories about live performances and crazy long drives across Europe.

Rich, whose wife Isabelle is French, would respond to the question “what are you doing this weekend” with an answer like “go to France for dinner.”

His dry sense of humor might make you think he was pranking you, but often he was actually just crossing the Channel in passing.

From the start, Richard's passion for making the Internet a little better every day was evident.

Over the many years we have worked together, he has launched everything from blogs to videos, calculators, tools, new site sections, newsletters, savings alerts and much more.

He was passionate about the aspects of the digital world that create a sense of community, from the early days of message boards to social media. These elements can often bring out people's less-than-favorable qualities, but that only made him try harder.

He injected that sense of togetherness into even trivial everyday things. In the dark days of the pandemic, it was Rich who stepped up every day to try to get people talking during Zoom team meetings.

His group emails for the world's most inept lottery syndicate were legendary and meant it reached far beyond This is Money, gathering more and more members from across the company.

Richard had a mad genius and viewed the Internet as an adventure.

For some unknown reason, about five years ago he decided to try to get to the top of the Google search for Taco Bell in Britain and managed to claim the number one spot in the results.

When he was eventually eliminated, he viewed it as an exercise in search engine optimization and occasionally stopped trying to get back on top.

In the late 1990s, at the height of the bank fees scandal, Rich and I decided to make a short video explaining what people needed to know.

We came up with the idea of ​​a recipe to get your money back. Armed with an apron, mixing bowl, wooden spoon and chef's hat, we filmed the first episode of Cooking with This is Money in an empty meeting room.

In addition to this headline concept and the props, we were also working on it – this became clear as soon as Rich rolled the camera. Somewhere there's a lost recording of us bursting out laughing trying to make that ill-fated pilot episode, which I'm assured never saw the light of day.

Rich was always disappointed that we never released it.

In the weeks before his death, Rich had been busy trying to grow This is Money's YouTube audience with our significantly more professional new series Lunch Money.

He was determined to get the number of people we signed up for our savings alerts above 20,000 this year. We currently have about 500 off, so if you haven't already, subscribe to do Rich a favor.

The spirit with which Rich approached these exploits and the countless other initiatives he's been involved in over the years is one that epitomizes the best groundbreaking bits of the internet.

Richard's attitude left an impression on almost everyone he ever worked with or met. In the days following his death, we have been touched by how many people have contacted us to tell us their stories about him and what he meant to them.

He was a talented musician and played in Surrey covers the band Broken Switchand had a career in which he worked as a TV and comedy scriptwriter in addition to local and national journalism.

That talent would manifest itself in his This is Money writing, such as a travelogue about visiting Lakeside instead of New York for shopping.

He could even bring humor to a much more serious subject, such as his writing about the financial consequences of colon cancer treatment – something that Richard lifted two fingers for ten years ago and which made everything clear.

His travels took Rich far beyond the shopping centers of Essex and he loved discovering new places, especially with his wife and daughter, meeting new people and returning home with even more incredible stories to tell – often with a very circuitous way to reach its destination. .

This year his travels included watching his daughter graduate in the Netherlands, which took her to the Galapagos Islands, and the weekend before he died he went to Finland to focus on Lapland. His email on his return read: 'Morning from sunny Epsom. I'm back. I met Santa Claus. Cheers, Rich.”

Richard is survived by his wife Isabelle and their daughter Emilie and our thoughts go out to them.

Rich was well liked by the This is Money team, both past and present. We will miss our friend Rich – the man who helped build the Internet.

> Read Richard Browning's writing for This is Money