BROWN, SIR GEORGE (1790-1865), British soldier, was born and educated in Elgin, Scotland. He obtained a commission in the 43rd (now 1st Bn. Oxfordshire) Light Infantry in 1806, was promoted lieutenant a few months later, and saw active service for the first time in the Mediterranean and at Copenhagen, 1806 and 1807. The 43rd was one of the earliest arrivals in Spain when the Peninsular War broke out, and Brown was with his regiment at Vimeiro, and in the Corunna retreat. Later in 1809 the famous Light Division was formed, and with Craufurd he was present at all the actions of 1810-1811, being severely wounded at Talavera; he was then promoted captain and attended the Staff College at Great Marlow until (late in 1812) he returned to the Peninsula as a captain in the 85th. With this regiment he served under Major-General Lord Aylmer at the Nivelle and Nive, his conduct winning for him the rank of major. The 85th was next employed under General Robert Ross in America, and Brown, who received a severe wound at the action of Bladensburg, was promoted to a lieut.-colonelcy. At the age of twenty-five, with a brilliant war record, he received an appointment at the Horse Guards, and remained in London for over twenty-five years in various staff positions. He was made a colonel and K.H. in 1831, and by 1852 had arrived at the rank of lieut.-general and the dignity of K.C.B. At this time he was adjutant-general, but on the appointment of Lord Hardinge to the post of commander-in-chief, Brown left the Horse Guards. In 1854, on the despatch of a British force to the East, Sir George Brown was appointed to command the Light Division. This he led in action, and administered in camp, on Peninsular principles, and, whilst preserving the strictest discipline to a degree which came in for criticism, he made himself beloved by his men. At Alma he had a horse shot under him. At Inkerman he was wounded whilst leading the French Zouaves into action. In the following year, when an expedition against Kertch and the Russian communications was decided upon, Brown went in command of the British contingent. He was invalided home on the day of Lord Raglan's death. From March 1860 to March 1865 he was commander-in-chief in Ireland. At the time of his death in 1865 he was general and G.C.B., colonel of the 32nd Regiment and colonel-in-chief of the Rifle Brigade.
BROWN, GEORGE (1818-1880), Canadian journalist and statesman, was born in Edinburgh on the 29th of November 1818, and was educated in his native city. With his father, Peter Brown (d. 1863), he emigrated to New York in 1838; and in 1843 they removed to Toronto, and began the publication of The Banner, a politico-religious paper in support of the newly formed Free Church of Scotland. In 1844 he began, independently of his father, the issue of the Toronto Globe. This paper, at first weekly, became in 1853 a daily, and through the ability and energy of Brown, came to possess an almost tyrannical influence over the political opinion of Ontario. In 1851 he entered the Canadian parliament as member for Kent county. Though giving at first a modified support to the Reform government, he soon broke with it and became leader of the Radical or "Clear Grit" party. His attacks upon the Roman Catholic church and on the supposed domination in parliament of the French Canadian section made him very unpopular in Lower Canada, but in Upper Canada his power was great. Largely owing to his attacks, the Clergy Reserves were secularized in 1854. He championed the complete laicization of the schools in Ontario, but unsuccessfully, the Roman Catholic church maintaining its right to separate schools. He also fought for the representation by population of the two provinces in parliament, the Act of Union (1841) having granted an equal number of representatives to each. This principle of "Rep. by Pop." was conceded by the British North America Act (1867). In 1858 Brown became premier of "The Short Administration," which was defeated and compelled to resign after an existence of two days.
He was one of the earliest advocates of a federation of the British colonies in North America, and in 1864, to accomplish this end, entered into a coalition with his bitter personal and political opponent, Mr (afterwards Sir) John A. Macdonald.
Largely owing to Brown's efforts, Federation was carried through the House, but on the 21st of December 1865 he resigned from the Coalition government, though continuing to support its Federation policy, and in 1867 he was defeated in South Ontario and never again sat in the House. In great measure owing to his energy, and in spite of much concealed opposition from the French-Canadians, the North-West Territories were purchased by the new Dominion. In December 1873 he was called to the Canadian senate, and in 1874 was appointed by the imperial government joint plenipotentiary with Sir Edward Thornton to negotiate a reciprocity treaty between Canada and the United States. The negotiations were successful, but the draft treaty failed to pass the United States Senate. Soon afterwards Brown refused the lieutenant-governorship of Ontario, and on two subsequent occasions the offer of knighthood, devoting himself to the Globe and to a model farm at Bow Park near Brantford. On the 25th of March 1880 he was shot by a discharged employé, and died on the 9th of May.
His candour, enthusiasm and open tolerance of the opinions of others made him many warm friends and many fierce enemies. He was at his best in his generous protests against all privileges, social, political and religious, and in the self-sacrificing patriotism which enabled him to fling aside his personal prejudices, and so to make Federation possible.
See J. C. Dent, Canadian Portrait Gallery (Toronto, 1800). The official Life, by the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, is decidedly partisan. A life by John Lewis is included in the Makers of Canada series (Toronto).
(W. L. G.)
BROWN, HENRY KIRKE (1814-1886), American sculptor, was born in Leyden, Massachusetts, on the 24th of February 1814. He began to paint portraits while quite a boy, studied painting in Boston under Chester Harding, learned a little about modelling, and in 1836-1839 spent his summers working as a railroad engineer to earn enough to enable him to study further. He spent four years (1842-1846) in Italy; but returning to New York he remained distinctively American, and was never dominated, as were so many of the early American sculptors, by Italian influence. He died on the 10th of July 1886 at Newburgh, New York. His equestrian statues are excellent, notably that of General Winfield Scott (1874) in Washington, D.C., and one of George Washington (1856) in Union Square, New York City, which was the second equestrian statue made in the United States, following by three years that of Andrew Jackson in Washington by Clark Mills (1815-1883). Brown was one of the first in America to cast his own bronzes. Among his other works are: Abraham Lincoln (Union Square, New York City); Nathanael Greene, George Clinton, Philip Kearny, and Richard Stockton (all in the National Statuary Hall, Capitol, Washington, D.C.); De Witt Clinton and "The Angel of the Resurrection," both in Greenwood cemetery, New York City; and an "Aboriginal Hunter."
His nephew and pupil, Henry Kirke Bush-Brown (b. 1857), also became prominent among American sculptors, his "Buffalo Hunt," equestrian statues of Generals Meade and Reynolds at Gettysburg, and "Justinian" in the New York appellate court-house, being his chief works.
BROWN, JACOB (1775-1828), American soldier, was born of Quaker ancestry, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of May 1775. From 1796 to 1798 he was engaged in surveying public lands in Ohio; in 1798 he settled in New York City, and during the period (1798-1800) when war with France seemed imminent he acted as military secretary to Alexander Hamilton, then inspector-general of the United States army. Subsequently he purchased a large tract of land in Jefferson county, New York, where he founded the town of Brownville. There he served as county judge, and attained the rank (1810) of brigadier-general in the state militia. On the outbreak of the second war with Great Britain (1812) he was placed in command of the New York state frontier from Oswego to Lake St Francis (near Cornwall, Ontario) and repelled the British attacks on Ogdensburg (October 4, 1812) and Sackett's Harbor (May 29, 1813). In July 1813 he was commissioned brigadier-general in the regular army, and in January 1814 he was promoted major-general and succeeded General James Wilkinson in command of the forces at Niagara. Early in the summer of 1814 he undertook offensive operations, and his forces occupied Fort Erie, and, on the 5th of July, at Chippawa, Ontario, defeated the British under General Phineas Riall (c. 1769-1851). On the 25th of July, with General Winfield Scott, he fought a hotly contested, but indecisive, battle with the British under General Gordon Drummond (1771-1854) at Lundy's Lane, where he was twice wounded. After the war he remained in the army, of which he was the commanding general from March 1821 until his death at Washington, D.C., on the 24th of February 1828.