Living History is an ongoing series showcasing just a small assortment of the more than 350,000 items housed at The Salvation Army Heritage Centre in Toronto. This month, we spotlight the bicycle General Arnold Brown owned when he was a young man.

The record of Arnold Brown, the second Canadian leader of the international Salvation Army, speaks for itself. The 11th General of The Salvation Army, General Brown served from 1977 to 1981. Earlier in his career, he was the assistant editor of The War Cry (now Salvationist) and served in the editorial department for a decade.

General Brown used the bike while in Belleville, Ont., during the 1930s, where his family settled after emigrating from England, before entering the College for Officer Training in 1933. It was donated to the Heritage Centre by relatives of Jack Green, bandmaster in Belleville. General Brown gave Green the bike when he left Belleville to enter training college.

General Brown mentions Jack Green in his autobiography, The Gate and the Light. 

“A young Welshman, Jack Green, who fled from the slag heaps of the Rhondda Valley and the hazards of the coal face, became my tutor,” General Brown wrote. “I had never heard cornet playing like his. In 1978, I had the privilege, as General, of pinning on his uniform the medal of the Order of the Founder, The Salvation Army’s highest honour to a Salvationist. I was only one of the hundreds, if not thousands, he had similarly trained and influenced. For some years the Belleville Quartette played and sang its way through festivals, church teas and lodge dinners. Green and Brown comprised the cornet section.”

Photos: Camilo Mejia