WILLIAM BROWN was a first-class headmaster of two schools and then a beloved parish priest in Norfolk.
Born in 1914 the son of Edward Brown, an artist who often exhibited at the Royal Academy, William Brown was educated at Bedford School from which he won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he not only flourished academically with firsts in French and German but was also a stout forward in a cup-winning college rugby team.
After a time in France he became a teacher at Wellington College, where he was particularly valuable after the Second World War broke out. The Army had rejected Brown because of poor circulation and sight, and replacements on the teaching staff were sometimes elderly or inexperienced.
Brown had married Betty Hill the day after the declaration of war and was a stable, wise, pastorally minded housemaster. He was always serene, and usually smiling.
In 1947 Brown’s old Pembroke tutor, Edward Wynn, who was now Bishop of Ely, recommended him for the headship of the King’s School, Ely. The postwar period was no easy time but the school, which had been minor, turned into a place of repute.
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In 1955 his old school, Bedford, took him back as its headmaster. There he was famous for knowing the pupils personally and was much liked by staff. His mode of headmastering was not thunder but encouragement. The gratitude was such that when, in 2005, the school reopened a reconstructed roof of its chapel, it dedicated the event to Brown though he had left 30 years previously.
At 60 Brown retired to north Norfolk where he and his wife had family roots. He was an excellent artist, especially in watercolours, and loved portraying the Norfolk countryside. But clergy for remote villages were in short supply, and the Bishop of Lynn told him that he ought to be ordained. So Brown did a course in the Norwich diocese, was ordained in 1976 and, without stipend, took charge of the parish of Saxlingham and Field Dalling.
At 70 he was made rural dean of Holt and so responsible for several parishes. He had a strong hostility to the amalgamation of too many parishes, but little village churches needed services and if he could not find someone to step in, he would conduct the service himself. In his later eighties Brown could no longer climb into a pulpit so he would sit in a chair on the chancel step and conduct the liturgy from there.
He never pushed himself forward and suspected anything pretentious. He had a sweet nature but was in no way weak.
He is survived by his wife and son.
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William Brown, headmaster and priest, was born on July 12, 1914. He died on December 14, 2005, aged 91.