Donald Forrester Brown (23 February 1890 – 1 October 1916) was a New Zealand soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for valour "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Born in Dunedin, Brown was a farmer when the First World War began in 1914. In late 1915, he volunteered for service abroad with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) and was posted to the 2nd Battalion, the Otago Infantry Regiment. He saw action on the Western Front, and was awarded the VC for his actions during the Battle of Flers–Courcelette in September 1916. As he was killed several days later during the Battle of Le Transloy, the award was made posthumously. His VC was the second to be awarded to a soldier serving with the NZEF during the war and was the first earned in an action on the Western Front.
Early life
Donald Forrester Brown was born on 23 February 1890 in Dunedin, New Zealand. He was one of 10 children of Robert Brown, a draper living in Oamaru, and his wife Jessie (). His parents were migrants from Scotland who had married in New Zealand. The youngest boy in his family, Brown was educated at South School and, later, Waitaki Boys' High School in Oamaru. After completing his schooling he took up farming, and by 1913 had purchased a farm at Totara, south of Oamaru.
First World War
When the First World War broke out, Brown continued to work on his farm for a year but then sold it and volunteered for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) on 19 October 1915. He received his training at Trentham Military Camp and embarked for the Middle East in January 1916 with the Ninth Reinforcements. By this time he had been promoted to corporal.
Brown's VC was only the second to be awarded to a soldier of the NZEF and the first as a result of an action on the Western Front. Arthur Foljambe, the 2nd Earl of Liverpool and New Zealand's Governor General, presented the VC to Brown's father in a ceremony at Oamaru on 30 August 1917. The medal remains in the possession of his family but it has been loaned for display at Waitaki Boys' High School, the QEII Army Memorial Museum in Waiouru and the North Otago Museum.
Brown is buried at Warlencourt British Cemetery, France. A memorial tablet in his honour was unveiled in the Oamaru Municipal Chambers on 27 October 1917. In 1919, as part of an effort to recognise men from North Otago who had been killed in the war, an oak tree was planted in his memory in Oamaru. There is also a plaque honouring him in Queens Gardens, Dunedin.