George Brown

Canadian journalist and politician

• Born: November 29, 1818
• Birthplace: Alloa, Scotland
• Died: May 9, 1880
• Place of death: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

One of the most influential Canadian journalists of his time, Brown transformed the Toronto Globe into a leading Canadian newspaper that backed political reform and was himself elected to the Canadian parliament. Through the last three decades of his life, he continued to be active in both publishing and politics.

Early Life

George Brown was the third of Peter and Marianne Mackenzie Brown’s nine children, three of whom died in infancy. The Browns were a closely knit family that had grown prosperous with the increasing success of Peter Brown’s draper’s business. The family’s country home was near the Firth of Forth in Alloa, twenty miles west of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was there that George was born. The family also occupied a succession of increasingly impressive homes in Edinburgh’s Hope End Park, Buccleuch Place, and Nicholson Square as George grew up. The genealogy on Marianne Brown’s side of the family included such luminaries as John Baliol, John of Gaunt, and King Edward I of England.

After 1825, Brown spent most of his early life in Edinburgh. When he was old enough, he attended Edinburgh’s renowned high school, where he had classmates who figured prominently in his later life in the New World, among them William and Thomas Nelson, sons of a prominent publisher, who were to become his brothers-in-law. Daniel Wilson, who later became president of the University of Toronto and a political supporter of Brown, and David Christie, who was politically active as a senator in Canada, were also among his classmates in the Edinburgh High School.

George, however, was not happy in the high school, and using the persuasive powers for which he was noted throughout his lifetime, he convinced his father that he should transfer to the Southern Academy of Edinburgh, a new school that he thought would suit him better than the more traditional high school. He became the top student in his class at Southern Academy and was designated to make the farewell speech for his graduating class. His mentor, Dr. William Gunn, introduced him on this occasion by saying that Brown not only had great enthusiasm himself but also possessed the ability to inspire enthusiasm in others.

Brown’s father envisioned a professional career for his son and presumed that he would attend university. Brown, however, had different ideas. He was quick at mathematics, and he reveled in the excitement of the business world, so he persuaded his father to employ him in his draper’s business, which was prospering. This turn in his career allowed Brown to go to London for a time to work with his father’s agents there.

The red-headed and blue-eyed youth had just turned eighteen and was already more than six feet tall. Brown quickly became indispensable to his father, becoming a virtual partner with him in the business. Peter Brown was a man of refined sensibilities and enjoyed the company of numerous literary friends, including J. A. Lockhart (Sir Walter Scott’s son-in-law), who became editor of the Quarterly Review.

George Brown had barely begun to make his mark in the family business when disaster struck. Shortly after the Reform Act of 1832, which Peter Brown had been active in supporting, the elder Brown was appointed Collector of Assessments for the reformed municipal administration of Edinburgh. In 1836, he was involved in the loss of twenty-eight hundred pounds of public funds, a huge amount of money in its day. The loss was attributed to bad management rather than dishonesty, but the elder Brown faced financial ruin. Friends and relatives came to his aid and enabled him to cover the loss, but he then was in their debt. When the financial Panic of 1837 followed hot on the heels of this first calamity, Brown believed that his only choice was to leave Edinburgh and try to make his fortune in the New World.

The closeness that Peter Brown and his son shared made it logical for George to accompany his father to the New World, and on April 30, 1837, they set sail aboard the Eliza Warwick for New York, arriving on June 10, after nearly six harrowing weeks at sea. It was a year before Peter Brown could establish in New York a residence sufficient to accommodate his wife and five other children. By that time, he and George had opened a modest draper’s shop on Broadway. Peter had assiduously saved his money to bring his family to New York and to repay those who had helped him meet his obligations before he left Scotland.

As Peter’s business grew, George became its representative in outlying districts and managed to get as far as Canada on some of his business trips north of New York City. Peter Brown had by now begun to write political articles for the Albion, a weekly aimed at British emigrants. He soon wrote regularly for the paper and published a book, The Fame and Glory of England Vindicated (1842), which gained for him considerable celebrity. This literary success led directly to his decision to give up his draper’s shop and begin the British Chronicle , an enterprise in which George was to share fully and enthusiastically. The success of this newspaper encouraged the family to emigrate from the United States to Canada in 1843 to begin publication of the Banner . The following year, Peter and George Brown began the Toronto Globe , a reform party newspaper published weekly. The Globe became a daily in 1853, and George Brown spent the rest of his life as the publisher of this important and widely influential newspaper, a career that catapulted him into politics.

Life’s Work

The Globe reached a ready audience. It advocated separation of church and state and opposed the French separatist movement that was then current. By 1845, Brown was able to launch a second newspaper, the Western Globe, which would reach people in the remote areas of Ontario north and west of Toronto.

Because both of Brown’s newspapers were unequivocal in their political stands, it was inevitable that Brown himself would be drawn into politics. Finally, in 1851, he stood for election as an independent liberal candidate from the county of Kent to the Canadian Parliament, which did not meet until August of the following year. Brown, who had served reform causes well, was elected handily and was to be a force in Canadian politics from that time forth.

Brown’s attempts to curtail the political power of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada won for him considerable support from Canada West (modern Ontario), which was largely Protestant. Canada East (modern Quebec), however, opposed his attempts to weaken the hold the Church was gaining in the country. Although Brown succeeded in bringing about the secularization of the land that the Crown had granted as preserves for Protestant clergymen in Canada, he was unable to put into effect his plan to have Parliament secularize all Canadian schools, largely because of concerted opposition from the Roman Catholic forces that would be affected by such legislation.

Brown sought to overturn the provisions of the 1840 Act of Union that gave each province an equal number of representatives. He supported proportional representation and, on that platform, rebuilt the Liberal Party of Canada’s sprawling West. Lack of consolidation and general political upheaval led to considerable political instability in Canada during the late 1850’s. In 1858, Brown served as prime minister for two days. The French separatists were strong enough to force him from office almost immediately.

Brown did not marry until he was in his forty-fifth year. Anne, his bride, was the accomplished daughter of Thomas Nelson, the London publisher. She returned from Great Britain to Canada with him in 1862 following their wedding on November 27, at Abden House, Edinburgh, where her family lived.

Brown continued his efforts on behalf of the federal union of Canada as an active participant in the important Charlottestown and Quebec conferences of 1864. When a deadlock seemed imminent, Brown had no choice but to form a coalition with his old political rival, Prime Minister John Macdonald . Brown was willing now to bury old political grievances in order to secure the dream, original with him, of a unified Canada. Although his dream of unification was achieved, Brown disliked the terms of a renewed reciprocity treaty with the United States and, in 1865, resigned from government service to devote himself full-time to his newspaper interests, through which he could continue to be an effective and influential spokesman for the views he espoused.

Brown was never to sit in the House of Commons again. He stood for election in 1867 and was defeated. He worked tirelessly to bring about Canada’s acquisition of the valuable Northwest Territories. In 1873, he became a senator. His chief contribution as a senator was in his renegotiation of a reciprocity treaty with the United States to replace the one to which he had so strenuously objected in 1865.

In his later years, Brown declined to serve as governor of Ontario and twice declined knighthood. He continued to be active in newspaper work until March 25, 1880, when a disgruntled former employee, George Bennett, whom Brown had never met, barged into his office and, obviously drunk, pulled a gun on Brown. In the ensuing struggle, the gun discharged, wounding Brown in the leg. The wound appeared superficial. After it was treated, Brown was able to walk to his carriage and go home, where he remained in seclusion, visiting with his family and doing newspaper work.

The wound, however, turned gangrenous, and after lingering for six weeks, George Brown ultimately died of gangrene on May 9, 1880. His assailant was tried and found guilty of premeditated murder. He was eventually hanged. Anne Nelson Brown returned permanently to Edinburgh after her husband’s death.

Significance

George Brown will long be remembered as a pioneer in the Canadian newspaper business. He was influential through both his newspaper work and his political career in bringing about the unification of Canada, a country of vast distances and far-flung outposts. Brown also fought a strenuous battle to assure the separation of church and state in Canada, a difficult task given the factionalism that was rife in the country at the time of his greatest political activity.

A polished debater from his high school days, Brown was to use this skill with astonishing effectiveness throughout his lifetime to win opposing elements to his side and to help those at opposite ends of the political spectrum to work together for the greater good of Canada through confederation.

During his lifetime, Brown came to represent the voice of reform and of liberal politics in Canada. Never one to refuse compromise if it was for the good of his country, Brown was a major force in Canadian politics for nearly forty years. His political opponents as well as his political supporters mourned his passing because they realized that the good Brown worked for was one that transcended party politics.

Bibliography

Brebner, John Barlett. Canada: A Modern History. Rev. ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970. Although this broad history offers only slight coverage of Brown directly, it is valuable for the background it provides for the political stands that Brown took throughout his public life.

Careless, J. M. S. Brown of “The Globe.” 2 vols. Toronto: Macmillan, 1959. The only thoroughgoing biography of Brown, this two-volume work is exhaustively and accurately researched and is the definitive biography of its subject.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Canada: A Story of Challenge. 3d ed. Toronto: Macmillan, 1974. This history of the development of Canada as a nation presents pertinent information about Brown as a publisher and as a politician who crusaded for a united Canada.

Creighton, Donald. The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. This book focuses on the movement that Brown spearheaded and presents extensive material about Brown’s continued leadership of that movement both as a newspaper publisher and as a politician.

McInnis, Edgar. Canada: A Political and Social History. 4th ed. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982. McInnis provides extensive direct coverage of Brown and a thorough discussion of the political arena of which he was a part.

McNaught, Kenneth. The History of Canada. New York: Praeger, 1970. Chapter 8 of this book, “Problems of Destiny,” presents extensive coverage of Brown, whom McNaught also mentions in salient ways elsewhere in the volume.

Morton, Desmond. A Short History of Canada. 3d rev. ed. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997. This book provides extensive treatment of Brown and of the reform movement in Canada with which he was so crucially affiliated.