William Brown

William Brown

William Brown, journalist, printer (b at Nunton, Scot c 1737; d at Québec C 22 Mar 1789). In partnership with Thomas Gilmore he published the first issue of the Quebec Gazette/La Gazette de Québec 21 June 1764. The Gazette was the first periodical in the PROVINCE OF QUEBEC and began with the ideal of informing the public with impartiality. However, mention of the revolutionary events in the Thirteen Colonies was censored by Governor Guy CARLETON after 1768 and publication was suspended during the American invasion of 1775-76, resuming thereafter as, in Brown's description, "the most innocent gazette in the British Dominions." Brown and Gilmore also published the first books in Québec, including a catechism, legal works and Abram's Plains (1789), a collection of poems by Thomas Cary.