Born on 24 February 1923, Brown was the son of a land agent father and a mother (Helen) who received the MBE for services in the WRVS in the Second World War.
His half-sister (by his father Thomas's first wife) was Mabel Raven Brown, known as Betty (married name Gilson; 1909–1965), who became a botanist and fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge.
[2] In 1953, the museum initiated a project to publish a facsimile of the Book of Landisfarne with a volume of commentary; the other staff in the department were too busy to complete the palaeographical commentary, so the responsibility passed to Brown, who had no formal instruction in the subject and had only been at the museum for three years.
The commentary appeared in 1960 as part of the second volume of Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Lindisfarnensis and it established his reputation.
[8] Elected a fellow of King's College London in 1975, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Durham University in 1986.