Brown was born in
London, the son of church minister
James Baldwin Brown and his wife, Elizabeth, a sister of the sculptor Henry Leifchild. He attended
Uppingham School before earning a scholarship to
Oriel College, Oxford in 1869; graduating with degrees in classics in 1871 and
literae humaniores (humanities) in 1873. That year Brown became a Fellow at
Brasenose College in 1874, appointed in a teaching position, but he left in 1877 and took up studio painting at the
National Art Training School in
South Kensington (now the
Royal College of Art). He became the first holder of the
Watson Gordon Chair of Fine Art at the
University of Edinburgh in 1880 (the first chair in fine art in Britain) and held the chair until his retirement in 1930. In Edinburgh he lived initially at 3 Grosvenor Street in the west of the city before moving to 50
George Square. It has been said that Brown's most significant work is the six-volume The Arts in Early England, which he started publishing in 1903 and was still working on when he died. The final volume was completed posthumously by Eric Hyde (Lord Sexton) in 1937. The book came to the attention of Sir
John Sinclair,
Secretary for Scotland, and led to the establishment in February 1908 of the
Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (on which Brown served as one of the first Commissioners), followed by equivalent
Royal Commissions for Wales and
England. His
The Glasgow School of Painters was published in 1908. Many of his books were illustrated by his wife, Maude Annie Terrell, a fellow artist, who he married in 1882. Brown was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1924. He was cremated and his ashes interred with his parents at
West Norwood Cemetery. ==Other==