Born in Athelstan (now Hichinbrooke), Huntingdon County, Quebec of Scots-Irish parents, Brown initially decided to become a lawyer and was educated at McGill University where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree[2] in 1899[citation needed] with first class honours.
[2] He remained in Saskatchewan throughout the Dust Bowl drought years of the Great Depression and, late in the decade, organized the left-wing United Reform Movement as a political party calling for relief.
[2] Agnes MacPhail, who introduced Brown to the floor of the House of Commons on 25 January 1940, was eventually recruited by the URM to succeed him, but she was defeated in the subsequent by-election later that year.
Brown left Red Deer later that year to oversee the re-organization of some Presbyterians in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan that had voted against joining the United Church.
In June 1931, he was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, and during his Moderatorial year, travelled to Asia, and visited Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the Manchuria portion of China.