Globe & Mail Story - William James Hay Brown

Baptist Minister Called by Death
Rev. W.J.H. Brown Spent 23 Years in W. Toronto

Rev. William J. H. Brown, who had spent twenty-three of his forty years as a Baptist minister in West Toronto has passed away after a lingering illness.   During his long service many professed conversion under his ministry and were baptized at his hands.

Born near Brownsville, it was in the little Baptist church there that Mr. Brown, then a boy, first felt the call to preach the Gospel. As a boy of 17 he began in a country schoolhouse, near the old farm home.   Then he studied at Woodstock College and McMaster University. Marrying Elizabeth Moore, he settled first in the home village of Brownsville. From the church there he moved to Shenstone Memorial Baptist, Brantford, and in a few years was able to raise the work from the status of a mission to that of a church. Moving to Barton Street (now Emmanuel), Hamilton.   Mr. Brown again did much to build up the church.   From there he came to West Toronto, and remained in Annette Street Baptist Church for some twenty-three years, his influence growing with the development of the west end of the city.

Mr. Brown leaves two sons, Rev. W. Gordon Brown, teacher in Toronto Baptist Seminary, and Rev. L. Douglas Brown, assistant curate of St. George's Church, Guelph.