An obituary for Henry James Stuart Brown was published in The Scotsman, 2^nd April 1941:

SCOTTISH PAINTER Death of Mr H. J. Stuart Brown THE death occurred yesterday, at Cathlaw, Torpichen, Linlithgowshire, of Mr Henry James Stuart Brown, a well-known Scottish etcher and water-colour painter, and chairman of the directors of the Acmé Tea Chest Company, Glasgow. Mr Brown, who was 70 years of age, was born at Bathgate and educated in Inverness and Glasgow. As a young man he wished to make art his sole career, but was dissuaded from doing so by his father, Mr Peter Stuart Brown, whom he joined as a director of the Acmé Company. This firm, in conjunction with the British Aluminium Company, made tea chests which they shipped direct to the plantations of India and Ceylon, to be filled there and returned to the London market. Combining art with business, Mr Stuart Brown produced work which was hung in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy, and held one-man shows in London and Glasgow. He also exhibited in Sydney and Brisbane, and a large number of etchings by him were accepted for the British Museum Print Room. He was a popular member of the Athenaeum Club and the Glasgow Art Club, of which he was at one time vice-president. Apart from art, his chief interests were antique furniture and hunting. He was an honorary secretary of the Linlithgow and Stirlingshire Hunt.

Cuttings of two further obituaries have been preserved, the dates and publications for which have not yet been identified.

THE LATE MR H. J. STUART BROWN By the death of Mr Henry J. Stuart Brown at Cathlaw on April 1, his native land and the world at large has (sic) lost a distinguished and naturally gifted etcher. Born at Bathgate, Linlithgowshire, on March 1, 1871, his inclinations, as a youth, were towards becoming a professional artist; but at the wish of his father he entered the employ of the Acme tea-Chest Company, Glasgow, of which, in time, he became chairman. Never abandoning his passionate love of sketching, or his old ambition, entirely, he devoted all his leisure hours to the pursuit of art, and took up etching in 1901, being encourage to continue by the praise Sir D. Y. Cameron accorded to some of his early efforts. As the result of this steady devotion, he has left a corpus of well over 200 etchings and drypoints, many of which will undoubtedly rank among the finest productions of their kind. A first exhibition of 56 of them was held in London in April, 1924, and led to his immediate recognition and acceptance as one of the best landscape etchers, calling forth the unstinted praise of such well-known authorities as Mr Campbell Dodgson. Prints by Stuart Brown subsequently found their way into many private collections as that in the British Museum, the Sydney Gallery, and various museums in America. A further exhibition was held in London in January, 1930, other exhibitions took place in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and an illustrated article by Mr R. A. Walker, followed by a chronological list of all the etchings produced to that date, appeared in the “Print Collector’s Quarterly” for October, 1927. Mr Stuart Brown will be affectionately remembered by all who knew him; he was a genial host, and had a discriminating taste in all fine things. – “Times,” 5-4-41.

DEATH OF MR H. J. A. STUART BROWN, CATHLAW Painter, Etcher, Country Gentleman By the death of Mr Stuart Brown of Cathlaw House on Tuesday, a man of many gifts and great personal charm has passed away, though in later years a lingering illness has hindered from much part in public life. He was born in 1871 in Bathgate where his father was in business as a chemist and was connected with many old families in the district. The father was not only a chemist but also an inventor and patentee, and the founder of the well-known Acme Packing Box Coy. in Glasgow, which Mr Brown (sic) also entered and in time became head of that firm. About eighteen years ago Mr Stuart Brown came to stay at Cathlaw, induced partly by some feeling for the home countryside, and also by his love of the hunting field. Here, while attending to business in Glasgow, he also, at the week-ends, took his place among the followers of the Linlithgow Fox Hounds. He worked hard during the week at his business, but as the old proverb tells us the man who has most to do has frequently the greatest leisure. Consequently he followed the hounds with keen enthusiasm and joy during the winter, and in the summer months did much excellent work as an etcher painter. Shy, elusive in some ways, among his friends he was genial, kindly, and the soul of hospitality. A man who delighted in country life and found peace after the day’s work in the quiet of Cathlaw, he remained fresh and boyish not only in appearance but in his outlook on life almost to the end. As he moved about among his dogs and his horses you felt that he was more than a business man. He was a man of the open air. As you chatted with him at night you realised also that he was a man who delighted in literature, Thomas Hardy, the novelist, being a favourite author of his. But it was as a painter etcher that he excelled, and was known to the world of art lovers, and held a deservedly high place among his contemporaries as a depicter of open air life. The fairies had added to other more prosaic qualities that rare and indefinable gift which makes the difference between a true artist and a mere craftsman. For a painter and an etcher, like a poet or man of letters, is born not made. Mr Stuart Brown was an etcher because the kind fairies had shyly placed that gift in his cradle at birth. I will not write here of his etching work. Space forbids. It is of the highest quality. Luckily for him his father, an inventor himself as I have said, encouraged his artistic bent, but like a canny Bathgate Scot advised him not to think of art as a career. One of the greatest characteristics of Mr Stuart Brown’s etchings is its fine and indeed remarkable sense of atmosphere, and of the open air. His etched lines are always clear and definite and sometimes his work rises to heights such as Whistler or D. Y. Cameron would not have disdained to own. Few, if any, among amateurs or even professionals could have given us such transcripts of rural scenes in England or Scotland. “Little roads of twinkling white Busy with fieldward teams and market gear.” And now all is over for a time. Farewell, but not forever. We shall meet again in other scenes as heretofore some fine summer morning. GEORGE BEALE.