After her father's death, she left her boarding school and moved to Guildford to live with her grandmother. There, she attended tuition of Canon Sweeting, a former headmaster of Bishop Hale's School who had taught a number of prominent men including John Forrest and Septimus Burt. According to her biographer, Sweeting's tuition left Brown with "a life-long conviction of the value of education, and an interest in books and reading".