James Stuart Campbell McEwan Brown [also known as J. S. C. McEwan Brown; and as J. S. C. McEwan-Brown] was born in Camden Town, London on 16 June 1870. At the time of his birth, his father, Alexander Brown, (1839-1920) was a blind maker. By the mid-1870s the family had moved to Hampshire where where Alexander Brown worked as a land agent and auctioneer, senior partner in the firm McEwan Brown & Wyatt.
Meanwhile, J. S. C. McEwan Brown began working as an architect and surveyor. It is not known where and with whom he received his training, however, whilst still in his late teens he was responsible for the design of the Pier at Boscombe in Hampshire [now Dorset]. The pier was opened with considerable ceremony on 29 July 1889 by the Duke of Argyll when J. S. C. McEwan Brown was only just nineteen. He later designed the YMCA at 1 St John's Road in Boscombe in 1895, several properties on the Boscombe Spa Estate, and, in 1901, a number of houses on Undercliffe Road and Mount Stewart Road in Boscombe. The architect Alexander Scott Carter (1881-1968) was articled in Brown's office from 1899 to 1902.
Following the retirement of his father and the closure of his land agency business in 1911, J. S. C. McEwan Brown gave up architecture and his career took a different path. He trained as an artist with Henri Tebbit (1852-1926) and Herbert J. Warrington Hogg, and subsequently worked as a watercolour painter. He exhibited locally and, from c.1920 to 1930, at Walker's Gallery in London.
His address was given as 10 Knole Road, Bournemouth, Hampshire in 1901 and 1911; and Lark's Gate, Bransgor, Christchurch, Hampshire in 1927 and 1949. He died in Christchurch, Hampshire on 29 January 1949