John Macmillan Brown

Who was John Macmillan Brown?

John Macmillan Brown was a Scottish-New Zealand academic, administrator and promoter of education for women.

Brown was born in Irvine, the sixth child of Ann Brown and her husband, James Brown, a sea captain. John was raised in a family that placed high value on education—for both sexes. He attended Irvine Academy, then University of Edinburgh and University of Glasgow. He declined a Balliol scholarship in mathematics instead taking a Snell exhibition for Classics and philosophy.

In 1874 he was selected as professor of Classics and English, one of three foundation chairs at the newly established Canterbury College in Christchurch, then part of the University of New Zealand. In his new role, he worked 16 hours a day, covering English literature and composition, Latin and Greek; inspecting secondary schools and examining for teachers' certificates. After a professor of classics was appointed in 1879, he took on history and political economy.

Under his patronage Canterbury College admitted Helen Connon as a matriculated student in 1876, the first Australasian university institution to admit women to degree classes on an equal basis with men.