Brown, a land broker and freeholder in his own right, was a leader in the Independent Order of Rechabites[4] and a provisional director for the Invercargill Temperance Hotel Company.

[7] A faithful reader of the WCTU's American newspaper, Union Signal, Eliza Ann Brown organised a local chapter on 6 August 1884 at the Don Street Primitive Methodist Church.

[14] Signing at the top of the WCTU NZ petition sheet for Avenal (the area in Invercargill where she lived), Brown took a leadership role in the historic process of winning the right to vote for women at the national level – the world's first.

[15] In the fall of 1893, when women were registering to vote in the national elections, WCTU NZ member Mary S. Powell remembered that "Mrs. Brown was at our door with a cab at 9 a.m."[14] By 1896 E.A.

[16] She encouraged that the local clubs start up their own Loyal Temperance Leagues, writing in The White Ribbon: "We must educate and interest the young folks if we wish to deliver our colony from the curse of strong drink.