Family Background and Education
Brown was born in Simcoe, Ontario, the eldest son among four children. His father, Frank August Brown, was a successful merchant in agricultural products who had close trading ties with the United States, was active in municipal politics and generally supported the reform policies of the Liberal Party. His son, however, became an outspoken Tory supporter of Canada's role within the British Empire and had a deep mistrust of the influence and intentions of the United States towards Canada.
In 1895 at the age of 14, Brown joined the 39th Norfolk Rifles, a local militia regiment, as a boy bugler. When the Anglo-Boer War started in 1899 he was a corporal and wished to join the Canadian Contingent in South Africa, but was persuaded to complete his education as a teacher. He continued his service in the militia after he had begun his career as a teacher, and by February 1901 was gazetted a Lieutenant. As a result of further courses as well as training at Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Brown qualified as a Permanent Force Officer. In June 1906 he was gazetted as a Lieutenant in The Royal Canadian Regiment (The RCR) in the Permanent Force.
James Sutherland Brown and Clare Temple Brown (née Corsan) had three sons. Lieutenant Colonel Malcolm C. Sutherland-Brown graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada in 1934 and served in the Royal Canadian Engineers overseas. Athol Sutherland-Brown, who was in the Royal Canadian Air Force, wrote ‘Buster Buster: A Canadian Patriot and Imperialist’. Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 2004. A third son Flying Officer Ian Mcdonnell Sutherland-Brown (RMC 1937) graduated from Royal Military College of Canada and was Killed In Action at 21 years of age in Royal Canadian Air Force on August 14, 1941. Ian Sutherland-Brown is commemorated on Page 24 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance.
Read more about this topic: James Sutherland Brown
Famous quotes containing the words family, background and/or education:
“It is as when a migrating army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws them,—to get his living. You tell me that he has a more interesting family than the mouse. That is as it happens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Major [William] McKinley visited me. He is on a stumping tour.... I criticized the bloody-shirt course of the canvass. It seems to me to be bad “politics,” and of no use.... It is a stale issue. An increasing number of people are interested in good relations with the South.... Two ways are open to succeed in the South: 1. A division of the white voters. 2. Education of the ignorant. Bloody-shirt utterances prevent division.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)