Judith M. Brown

Judith M. Brown - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Judith M. Brown

Judith Margaret Brown FRHistS (born 9 July 1944) is a British historian, academic and Anglican priest, who specialises in the study of modern South Asia.

This profile of Judith M. Brown covers Early Life and Family Background, Career and Rise to Fame and Awards and Honours.

Early Life and Family Background of Judith M. Brown

Brown was born in India to the Rev Wilfred George Brown and Joan Margaret Adams. She was educated in Britain, arriving at Girton College, Cambridge to read History in 1962 and receiving her PhD from the same institution in 1968. She spent the next two years as a research fellow at Girton and then became a tutorial fellow before leaving in 1970.

Brown felt the call to ordination when she was young, before the ordination of women was allowed in the Anglican Communion. She was trained at Ripon College Cuddesdon.

Career and Rise to Fame of Judith M. Brown

From 1990 to 2011, she was the Beit Professor of Commonwealth History and a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. Earlier she taught at the University of Manchester. She retired from teaching in 2011. Brown published widely on the history of modern South Asia, but is especially known for her work on Gandhi.

She was ordained in the Church of England as a deacon in 2009 and as a priest in 2010. From 2009 to 2010, she served her curacy at St Frideswide's Church, Osney, in the Diocese of Oxford. Since 2014, she has been an associate priest of St Mary Magdalen's Church, Oxford. She served as interim chaplain to Brasenose College, Oxford in 2017; the first woman to serve as chaplain of the college.

Awards and Honours

In 2000 Brown was awarded an honorary doctorate of social science from the University of Natal. She was elected to the Academia Europaea in 2011. Brown is also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_M._Brown), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.