text: Early years Brown was born to upper-middle-class parents in Carleton Place,  west of Ottawa. His family home still exists, located at 38 Mill Street, just down from the Town Hall. Another source, the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum, refers to the family home as being on Judson Street, and says that this was his birthplace. That house also still exists. He was the middle of five children. He had two older sisters, Margaret and Bessie, and two younger brothers, Horace and Howard. His father had started business as a miller, but branched out into electrical generation when the first power grids were being set up around the start of the 20th century. His father eventually owned a power company in the town.
  Though Brown did well in high school, he transferred to a business school to study accounting to eventually take over the family business. Following this course, he wanted to continue to university to study business administration, but he needed to have graduated from high school which he had not done. He took a course at the Victoria High School in Edmonton from 1913 to 1915 to get his high-school diploma. There he befriended Wilfrid R. "Wop" May.
  Flight training
  Brown enlisted in 1914 as an Officer Cadet at the Army Officers' Training. As a prerequisite to joining the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), Brown received flight training at the Wright Flying School near Dayton, Ohio, from September to November 1914. He was awarded Aero Club of America Pilot's Certificate No. 361 on 13 November, and was confirmed as a flight sub-lieutenant in the RNAS on the 15th.