George Brown (missionary)

Brown was educated at a private school and on leaving, became an assistant in a doctors surgery, was afterwards with a chemist, and then in a draper's shop.

[citation needed] Brown, when 16 years old, sailed in a large East Indiaman chartered by the government as a troop-ship.

He joined Patteson's bible class, but "could not remember receiving any great spiritual benefit at that time".

[1] Brown was a key figure in the early days of training Samoans for the ministry and the establishment of Piula Theological College on the north coast of Upolu Island in Samoa.

[2] Brown began writing his manuscript journals in Samoa, recording his experience as a missionary in the Pacific.

His mastery of the language was a great asset, and his human charity helped much in all his relations with both the natives and the white beachcombers living on the islands.

In 1878 he led a punitive expedition against a cannibal chief responsible for the massacre of Christian native teachers, this caused an uproar in the Australian press and was known as the 'Blanche Bay affair'.

He also wrote a series of anonymous articles in The Sydney Morning Herald regarding the necessity of British control of the islands of the Pacific.

George Brown, Special Commissioner of the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist General Conference to Tonga, printed at Sydney in 1890.

He continued for many years to keep in touch with missionary work in Papua, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomons, Samoa, Fiji and Tonga.

He resigned his position of general secretary of missions in 1907, and in the following year brought out his autobiography George Brown, D.D., Pioneer-missionary and Explorer.

[1] Brown published Melanesians and Polynesians Their Life-histories Described and Compared (1910), a valuable record of the manners, customs and folklore of the islanders written by a man who had spent much of his time among them over a period of 48 years, and who was familiar with the Samoan, Tongan, Fijian and New Britain languages.

25–26 Samoan stories, proverbs, sayings, by Penisimani; collected and partly translated by Reverend George Brown, 1865–1870 A 1686 / vol.