Prof J McMillan Brown

John Macmillan Brown (1845 - 1935) was a university professor and administrator who played a considerable role in laying the foundation for university tertiary education in New Zealand. He was born in Scotland and attended Edinburgh, Glasgow and Oxford universities. After working for the National Geological Survey in the UK, in 1874  he was appointed Professor of Classics and English at the newly established Canterbury College (later to become Canterbury University) in Christchurch. As well as being an inspiring teacher, Macmillan Brown was one of the first promoters in Australasia of higher education for women with Canterbury College becoming the first higher-education institution in either Australia or New Zealand to allow women to study for degrees on an equal basis to men.  One of his early students was Helen Connon who went on to become the second woman in the British Empire to graduate with a BA and the first to be awarded a degree with honours. Enamored with his student, he later was to ask for her hand and they married in 1886. She went on to become the foundation principal of Christchurch Girls High School and the first of their two daughters, Millicent Amiel, would later marry Archibald Baxter and thus become the mother of the poet, James K Baxter. The Macmillan Brown Library and the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies (both at Canterbury University) are named in his honour.  

See the link to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography below for further information.