His parents were William Brownbill, an English emigrant shopkeeper, and Margaret Tattersall from the Isle of Man.
Margaret died in 1913, and in 1920 he married his housekeeper, Fanny Alford, with whom he had a son and a daughter.
In 1920, he ran for election to state parliament, winning the seat of Geelong for the Labor Party.
In 1932, he was defeated in the election by Edward Austin, but re-contested and regained the seat in 1935.
[2] Brownbill died in 1938, and the ensuing by-election saw his widow, Fanny Brownbill, elected as his replacement—the first woman representing the Labor Party elected to a parliamentary seat in Victoria.