The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Brown, Professor John McMillan
Brown, Professor John McMillan, M.A., was born in 1846, and educated at Irvine Academy and at Glasgow University, where he graduated M.A. in 1869. Having gained the Snell Exhibition in English Language, Literature, and History, Mr. Brown proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1870; but ill-health prevented him from completing his course, and in 1874, when Canterbury College, Christchurch, was founded in affiliation to the University of New Zealand, he was selected to fill the chair of Classics and English. In 1879 Mr. Brown resigned the chair of Classics, and became Professor of English and English History. In the same year he was a member of the Royal Commission on the state of higher education in New Zealand, and was appointed Fellow of the University Senate. He was one of the founders of the short-lived New Zealand Magazine in 1875. In 1886 Mr. Brown married Miss Helen Connon, one of the first lady graduates in Her Majesty's dominions.