Series 5 - Personal miscellaneous items

Title and statement of responsibility area

Title proper

Personal miscellaneous items

General material designation

  • Textual record
  • Graphic material
  • Cartographic material

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Level of description

Series

Reference code

CA SFL MsC 57-5

Edition area

Edition statement

Edition statement of responsibility

Class of material specific details area

Statement of scale (cartographic)

Statement of projection (cartographic)

Statement of coordinates (cartographic)

Statement of scale (architectural)

Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)

Dates of creation area

Date(s)

  • 1920-1978 (Creation)
    Creator
    Brown, George Harrison

Physical description area

Physical description

5.5. cm of textual records and graphic material. -- 2 maps.

Publisher's series area

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Archival description area

Name of creator

(1893-1977)

Biographical history

George Harrison Brown was born in Surrey, England, in 1893. Like many of his peers he went by his middle name and was known to all as Harrison Brown. In 1914, at the age of 21, he enlisted in the British Army and saw active service in France for the duration of the First World War. After the War he lived in London and Paris and became associated with the American Committee for the Outlawry of War. During this period he travelled extensively within Europe, working with the staff of the League of Nations and foreign ministries. The work of the Committee was wound up when the Kellogg-Briand Pact (Treaty of Paris, 1928), was enacted.

He then became a free lance journalist and writer, writing for the Evening Standard, the New Chronicle, the New Statesman, the Fortnightly Review, and numerous other publications, and also broadcasting several radio series for the BBC. He lived in Germany from 1929 to 1933, leaving several months after Adolf Hitler came to power and spent the next few years writing about the rise of fascism and made numerous lecturing tours to university campuses in the United States and Canada, under the auspices of The Institute of International Education.

In 1936-1937 he made an extensive journey through Scandinavia, the USSR, Japan, Korea, and China. In China he travelled to Sian where he interviewed the young Marshall Chang Hsueh Liang, two days before he infamously kidnapped Chiang Kai Shek and obtained from him a change in Kuomintang policy in order to unite the nation against the Japanese invasion. During this period Brown kept a detailed journal and took hundreds of photographs which chronicled his travels. This would later take the form of an unpublished manuscript.

In 1937 Brown moved permanently to Hornby Island, British Columbia, with his common law wife Hilary Brown, an accomplished author. Here they established the Heron Rocks Campsite which later became a Co-op. In 1940 Brown ran unsuccessfully as the candidate for the C.C.F. in the Comox - Alberni riding.

Brown became a Canadian citizen and continued to write articles and short stories. He died in September 1977 at the age of the 84.

Custodial history

Scope and content

The series consists of the creator’s field books, address books, correspondence records, passports, cartoons, a scheme of appropriation, will and probate documents, and two maps of China which display the route Brown took during his tour of China.

Notes area

Physical condition

Immediate source of acquisition

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      Location of originals

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      Alternative identifier(s)

      Standard number

      Standard number

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      Control area

      Description record identifier

      Institution identifier

      Simon Fraser University Library Special Collections and Rare Books

      Rules or conventions

      Rules for Archival Description

      Status

      Level of detail

      Dates of creation, revision and deletion

      Created December 14, 2012

      Language of description

        Script of description

          Sources

          Accession area