[5] Brown was educated at Enfield Grammar School[6] before studying for ordination at the London College of Divinity.
After a curacy at St James, Milton, Portsmouth[7] he went out to the Diocese of Travancore and Cochin on the Malabar coast of India in January 1938, working there for the Church Missionary Society, and eventually becoming Principal of the Kerala United Theological Seminary.
[8] In 1952 Brown accepted the post of Bishop of Uganda, despite having doubts because of his support for indigenisation.
[13] The three national churches were later to become three separate provinces, but remained a single provincial unit throughout Brown's tenure.
A noted author, his history The Indian Christians of St Thomas, was described at the time of his death as "a classic textbook".