Edwin Brown

Edwin Brown

Personal information
Full name	Edwin Stanley Brown
Nickname	Nigger
Born	1898 ?, Australia
Died	1972 (age 74) Toowoomba, Australia
Playing information
Position	Centre
Club Years Team Pld T G FG P 191?–2? Newtown (Toowoomba) Representative Years Team Pld T G FG P 1919–25 Queensland 1921–22 Australia 19??–?? Toowoomba

Edwin Stanley "Nigger" Brown^[1] (1898–1972) was an Australian rugby league footballer of the 1910s and 1920s. A Queensland state and Australian international representative centre,^[2] he played club football in Toowoomba for Newtown.^[3][4]

Brown, an Anglo-Australian who was nicknamed "Nigger" because of his fair complexion (or perhaps because of his use of the "Nigger Brown" variety of Kiwi shoe polish),^[5][6] became Toowoomba's first rugby league international^[7] when he was selected to go on the 1921–22 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain, during which he played four matches.

Brown forged a world-class centre combination with Tom Gorman in the famous Toowoomba sides of the 1920s,^[8] and in 1925 injured his ankle playing in their win over the New Zealand national side before a crowd of around 5,000 in Toowoomba.^[9]

Brown later served as a judge for Sunday Herald's player of the season award.^[10] He was also president of the Toowoomba Rugby League during the early 1950s^[11] and became a local councillor in Toowoomba.^[12] He was Kangaroo Tour manager in 1954.^[13]

In the 1960s a grandstand in Toowoomba's main football stadium, the Toowoomba Sports Ground, was named the 'E S "Nigger" Brown Stand' in his honour.^[14] Brown died in 1972 aged 74.^[15]

The "E S 'Nigger' Brown Stand" later became the subject of a book, The N Word: One Man's Stand, by Stephen Hagan who campaigned for its removal. When the stand was demolished in September 2008, the Toowoomba Sports Ground Inc decided not to use the "Nigger" nickname in future references to Brown.^[14]

References