My cousin Robin Brown, who has died aged 62 of brain cancer, dedicated almost a decade of selfless public service to Richmond upon Thames council. Elected as a Liberal Democrat councillor in 2018, Robin became lead member for finance, his background in business serving the local community through a period including the Covid-19 pandemic. This administration was rewarded by the electorate earlier this year with a clean sweep of council seats for the Lib Dems.
Robin was born in Berkshire, and in grew up in Woking, Surrey, the eldest child and only son of Veronica (nee Bull), a photogrammetry academic, and John Brown, who worked for the Milk Marketing Board and was later a director of Dairy Crest. After attending the Royal grammar school Guildford, Robin studied mathematics for a year at Queens’ College, Cambridge, before switching to social and political science, and graduated in 1984. He joined Unilever’s graduate trainee scheme, where he met Jane Wilson, an engineer, whom he married in 1995.
They moved with Unilever, living in Leeds in the late 1980s, the Netherlands (1990-94) and then Sheffield, where their children, Ellie and Alex, were born; in 1999, the family settled in Teddington, south-west London. Robin was then working for United Biscuits, ending up as finance director. He retired from full-time work in 2012, and devoted more time to his family, and supporting his parents and youngest sister, Lucy, after Felicity, his middle sister, took her own life (another sister, Sally, had died very young).
He also served several terms as a governor of Kingston grammar, including setting up a partner school in China. In addition to council finance, Robin led the general election campaigns of 2019 and 2024 for Munira Wilson, the local Twickenham MP, who said that Robin was “one of the kindest, smartest, most hard-working and generous people I have ever known”. He relinquished the council finance role in May last year and hoped to continue his long-term project of climbing the Munros. the Scottish mountains more than 3,000ft (914 metres) high, and travelling with Jane, who had also retired.
The cancer diagnosis denied him that. He faced his illness with steadfastness, continuing with local Lib Dem party work and theatre trips until his last weeks. Robin is survived by Jane, their children, Ellie and Alex, by his parents, John and Veronica, and his sister, Lucy.
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