Edwin Stanley "Nigger" Brown (1898–1972) was an Australian

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

player who played in the 1910s and 1920s. A Queensland state and Australian international representative centre, he played club rugby in

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( ), nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar', is a city on the border of South East Queensland and Darling Downs regions of Queensland, Australia. It is located west of Queensland's capital, Brisbane. The urban population of Toowoom ...

for Newtown. Brown, an Anglo-Australian who was nicknamed "

Nigger In the English language, ''nigger'' is a racial slur directed at black people. Starting in the 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been increasingly replaced by the euphemistic contraction , notably in cases where ''nigger'' is Use–menti ...

" because of his fair complexion (or perhaps because of his use of the "Nigger Brown" variety of

Kiwi Kiwi most commonly refers to: * Kiwi (bird), a flightless bird native to New Zealand * Kiwi (nickname), an informal name for New Zealanders * Kiwifruit, an edible hairy fruit with many seeds * Kiwi dollar or New Zealand dollar, a unit of curren ...

shoe polish), became Toowoomba's first rugby league international when he was selected to go on the

1921–22 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain The 1921–22 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain was the third ever Kangaroo tour. Again an Australasian side rather than an Australian team alone (although the 28-man squad featured only one New Zealander) travelled to Great Britain to contest t ...

, during which he played four matches. Brown forged a world-class centre combination with Tom Gorman in the famous Toowoomba sides of the 1920s, 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. Brown later served as a judge for ''

Sunday Herald The ''Sunday Herald'' was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre- ...

s player of the season award. He was also president of the Toowoomba Rugby League during the early 1950s and became a local councillor in Toowoomba. He was

Kangaroo Tour Kangaroo Tour is the name given to Australia national rugby league team tours of Great Britain and France, tours to New Zealand and the one-off tour to Papua New Guinea (1991). The first Kangaroo Tour was in 1908. Traditionally, Kangaroo Tours too ...

manager in 1954. 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. Brown died in 1972 aged 74. 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 nickname in future references to Brown.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Edwin 1898 births 1972 deaths Australia national rugby league team players Australian rugby league players Controversies in Australia Naming controversies Place of birth missing Place of death missing Queensland rugby league team players Race-related controversies Rugby league centres Rugby league players from Toowoomba 20th-century Australian sportsmen