Tom Brown is a fictional character created by author Thomas Hughes in his work Tom Brown's School Days (1857) which is set at a real English public school—Rugby School for Boys—in the 1830s when Hughes himself had been a pupil there.
At Rugby, he befriends Harry "Scud" East, a slightly-senior boy, and falls afoul of the school bully, Flashman.
Over the course of the novel, Brown changes from a timid boy to a brave young man who has overcome his initial fear of Flashman and his ilk.
Tom Brown later appears in the historical novel Flashman's Lady (1977) by George MacDonald Fraser, in which he is reunited with his former rival, Harry Flashman, and invites him to a cricket game as an act of friendship.
Flashman describes Tom's adult form as "...a giant of a man...like some boxer...".