BROWN, ARTHUR WILLIAM (1882-1961)

BROWN, ARTHUR WILLIAM, Methodist and United Church minister, Newcastle, 1923-26; b. Derbyshire, England, 10 Apr 1882, s/o Arthur Brown and Ann Cresswell; m. 1910, Sarah Mary Espiner; d. Brantford, Ont., 31 May 1961.

In 1910 Arthur W. Brown finished a training program for Primitive Methodist ministers in England and immigrated to Ontario. He was ordained in 1914 and served within the London Conference until appointed to the Methodist church at Newcastle in the summer of 1923. It was he who was responsible for leading the Methodist congregation into union with the Presbyterians under the new United Church of Canada. In collaboration with his Presbyterian counterpart, the Rev. Lachlan H. MacLean, he accomplished this task without encountering the bitter opposition that arose on the Presbyterian side.

In 1926, he was called to Point de Bute, but he soon returned to Ontario, where he served as a United Church minister for another twenty-one years. He retired in 1948 and had been residing in Brantford for twelve years prior to his death in 1961. He was survived by his wife, Sarah M. Espiner, and four children, all of whom were schoolteachers.