Fonds 1089 - Brown Family fonds

Joshua Brown was born and educated in Manchester, England on 7 April 1805. Brown was a police superintendent and amateur scientist in Stockport and Manchester. In 1841, he briefly moved to New York to look for employment with the police service before travelling back to Manchester. In 1854, Brown wrote System of the Universe, a text based on his understanding of the principles and internal laws of the earth’s matter. He positioned his viewpoint in opposition to the Newtonian philosophy of how motion affects matter . He married Sarah Price Brown in 1833 and his family, including five sons and four daughters, emigrated to Canada in 1855. Once here, they settled in Simcoe County, Ontario. Brown was part of Lynedoch Lyceum, a debating society in Ontario. He died in 1904.

John Price Brown was born in Manchester, England on 30 March, 1844, and emigrated to Canada in 1850. He graduated with an MB from the University of Toronto in 1868 and was the first medical student to receive two gold medals with his MD in 1869. After postgraduate work at Edinburgh University, he settled in Galt, moving to Toronto in 1889 to specialize in nose and throat surgery, in which he pioneered new surgical techniques. He as a founder of the Toronto Western Hospital, a short story writer and, after losing his sight about 1918, a writer of historical novels. He died in Toronto on 3 April, 1938.

Newton Harcourt Brown, son of John Price Brown, was born in Galt, Ontario in 1874 and graduated from the Ontario College of Pharmacy in 1893, then took a PhmB examination from the University of Toronto and received his degree in 1895. He married Grace Amanda Young (University College, 1897-1898) and they had four sons and a daughter. He headed his own company that dealt in physicians' supplies, and was an amateur painter. Latterly, he lived in Richmond Hill. He died on 11 November, 1946.

(Graham) Egerton Brown was the youngest son of Newtown Harcourt Brown. At the University of Toronto, Brown was the President of the University College Literary and Athletic Society. He received a BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto in 1926. Egerton Brown married Hazel Kingsworthy in 1927. He worked for Sun Life Assurance Company in Montreal for many years beginning as a clerk in 1921 (which he left to attend University of Toronto), returning in 1925, and eventually became Senior Vice-President in 1963. He was also a Fellow and President of the Life Insurance Institute of Canada. He died in 1998.

Newton Price Harcourt Brown was born in Toronto on May 30, 1900. He was educated at the University of Toronto where he received his Bachelor of Arts (UC, 1925) and Master of Arts (1926) degrees in Modern Languages. He obtained a Phd. from Columbia University in 1934. Professor at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. He lived in Kingston and taught at Queen’s University from 1926 to 1929. In 1927 he married Elizabeth Stacey, of Toronto. Professor Brown died in Winnipeg on November 17, 1990.

BA (UC) 1923

(Agnes) Elizabeth Brown, the daughter of Newton Harcourt Brown, received a BA from the University of Toronto in 1928 (she was elected vice-president of the 2T8 University College class) and a MA in Personnel and Guidance from Columbia University in 1939. Prior to WWII, she worked for the department stores, Simpson’s and Eatons, and in New York, at Greenwich House. During the war, Elizabeth Brown initiated a program to recruit women into industries for the federal Department of Labour. Brown was the Chief of Mission for the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in Palestine (1945-1947). She later served as the Regional Officer for the National League of Nursing. When in Germany, she served as Director of Repatriation for the US zone for the International Refugee Organization (IRO) (1948-1952). Brown later became Director of Foster Parents Plan (1963-1969) in Ho Chi Ming City, Vietnam, formerly known as Saigon. She helped establish a Foster Parents Plan in Australia (1971-1972) before retiring. The Elizabeth Brown Travel Award was established in her name to support University College students provide humanitarian aid internationally. Brown died in 1990.