Brown, James Hodge | Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada

BROWN, James Hodge (1881-c. 1956), a native of Dundee, Scotland, was born on 14 January 1881 and attended the Technical School there. He emigrated to Canada in 1904 and spent the next six years as draftsman with Darling & Pearson, the leading firm in Toronto. It was there that he met Andrew Sharp, another Scottish native, and they formed a partnership in 1910 (see list of works under Sharp & Brown). Their collaboration ended in 1919 and Brown returned to the office of Darling & Pearson and remained until 1923, then worked for John M. Lyle and for Chapman & Oxley in 1923-26. In late 1925 he submitted an entry under his own name in the international competition for the National War Memorial in Ottawa (Ottawa Journal, 1 Feb. 1926, 3). His proposal was among over one hundred designs sent in, but he was not one of the seven finalists. From late 1926 he was employed as assistant staff architect by the Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada in Montreal. After 1945 he moved to Ottawa to work in the Construction Division of Central Mortgage & Housing Corporation. Brown resigned from the Ontario Assoc. of Architects in 1956.