Rev Dr John Ebenezer Brown; born October 26,1914, died December 7, 1998
THE father of Chancellor Gordon Brown, born into a Fife farming family at Peattieshill one month after the outbreak of the First World War, John Brown achieved his ambition to become a Church of Scotland minister shortly before the start of the Second.
Educated at Cults and Kettle primaries, he went on to Bell-Baxter High School in Cupar and St Andrews University. There he had a distinguished academic career where he gained an MA in 1935 and a BD after three years study at St Mary's College.
After serving as an assistant at Newburgh St Katharine's and then at Govan St Mary's, he was ordained and inducted at Dunoon St Cuthbert's in May 1939 before returning to Govan in 1943.
In 1954 he became minister at Kirkcaldy St Brycedale, a charge he held for 13 years where he was also chaplain to Kirkcaldy High School.
Dr Brown married Elizabeth Souter in April 1947 and they had three sons: John, 50, head of
public relations for Glasgow City Council; Gordon, 47, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Andrew, 42, a Channel Four television producer.
His last ministry was St John's in Hamilton and during the town's redevelopment in 1969 he successfully campaigned for a church
centre in its heart to provide ecumenical outreach serving the community. It still thrives today.
Dr Brown, 84, received a doctorate in divinity from St Andrews University in 1979 shortly before his retiral when he and his wife moved to Insch where she has close family links.
Their sons got together to spring a surprise for him on his 80th birthday by publishing A Time to Serve a collection of his sermons.
Writing in that book, a univer-sity contemporary, Rev Professor Murdo Ewen Macdonald, wrote: ''Greatly loved, he was an able preacher and superb pastor, distinguished by his selfless concern for those committed to his care.''
That concern continued into
his retirement where he occasionally preached at local churches
and frequently visited patients at Insch Hospital.
''He was a very fine man,''
said Rev Robert McLeish, minister at Insch.
''He was totally committed to the Church and committed to the Third World. Even at the age of 82 he was out taking the collection round the doors for Christian Aid. For a man of his years to do that showed very great commitment indeed.''
Dr Brown is survived by his wife, three sons, and four grandchildren.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article