Subject

Painter and designer. Born Calais - the family travelled frequently between France and England. Not formally a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood but he was friends with them and shared their painting style. For much of his life he had long flowing hair, centre-parted. After the death of his first wife (his cousin) he married his working-class model, Emma, once he had educated her to respectability. The two foreground figures in his painting "the Last of England" are modelled on himself and Emma. Designed furniture and stained glass for William Morris's firm. All his children were educated to paint: his daughter Lucy married William Rossetti, his son Oliver was also a poet and, Brown believed, greatly talented but he died the same year. Brown was inconsolable, preserving Nolly's room as a shrine in each subsequent home. Brown had great respect for the labouring classes and, though frequently poor himself, he often assisted the destitute and also friends in need. Later in life he found some success in Manchester and lived there for a time. Grandfather to Ford Madox Ford.
Died at his home, 1 St Edmund's Terrace, Primrose Hill. Buried at St Pancras and Islington cemetery, East Finchley.