Walter Vincent alias Brown was a member of the opportunistic profession of the sweet-talking donation fraudster. He presented himself as a genuine collector of subscriptions for various charities, but he was not.

Obtaining funding for the work of the various nineteenth-century philanthropic organisations was always a challenge. There was little government financial assistance available, and the various charitable organisations were dependent upon the generosity of the public for financial support. To gain that support, the many charities that wished to collect money from the public engaged in a number of activities and strategies. Prominent among their activities was the public annual meeting, often chaired by a socially important person, where the activities of the organisation were reported and supportive resolutions passed. At the meeting, someone, usually the committee secretary, would read a report detailing what had been achieved in the past year, often giving encouraging examples of success and underlining the difficulty of the task which the charity had undertaken. Such reporting made the committee that ran the charity accountable to the public and to its subscribers. It also showed what had been achieved through public financial support, educated the community on the continuing need for the charity, and gave hope for success in the future, so that there might be continued interest and increased financial support given by individuals. These meetings were often widely reported in detail by the press, which devoted considerable space to them. 

During the 1890s through to the first decade of the 1900s, the colonies of Australia experienced a severe economic depression. Businesses reported a slowness in trade, a drop in profits, the need to shed workers and in the case of many, through indebtedness and an inability to service loans, to declare bankruptcy. On the personal front, and as a result of reduced income, this meant less food on the table and less access to medical assistance if needed. There was an increase in unemployment as businesses, both large and small, sought to reduce expenditure in an attempt to survive the times.