Her father ran a number of fruit shops under the title of William Brown & Sons but he trained his daughters, Agnes and Jessie, well and refused to submit to laws that he objected to.

[3] Brown was an activist for the Women's Freedom League which was a suffrage organisation created in 1907 in reply to the Pankhursts' autocracy.

It was Florence Gertrude de Fonblanque's idea[4] and she, Brown and four others including Sarah Benett set off from Edinburgh in 1912 to walk to London.

With a father who had been a de facto political prisoner she supported the idea that men could be members of the Women's Freedom League.

That group formed the Northern Men's Federation for Women's Suffrage and Agnes volunteered to be their secretary.

Other members were Sarah Siddons, Lillias Tait Mitchell, Agnes Syme Macdonald and Alexi Buttar Jack.

[10] Brown wrote articles, plays and stories; a number of the latter, such as "The Stockin'" were dramatised by Elizabeth Finlayson Gauld.