Brittan's daughter's biographer (Rosamund Rolleston, his great-granddaughter) described him as "a man of ability and a polished speaker [his] biting, sarcastic manner made him both feared and disliked", and as "quarrelsome and uncompromising". In his obituary, he was described "as a speaker [who] took very high rank, possessing a force and fluency of expression, a power of lucid statement, and a readiness in debate, which with one or two exceptions have never been equalled in the Council." Brittan Street was named for him and first appeared in street directories in 1892. Linwood House, which fronted onto both Linwood Avenue and Brittan Street, was registered by Heritage New Zealand as a class D heritage building in 1982, and with a change of the classification system later, it later became a Category II listing. Significantly damaged in both the September 2010 and the February 2011 earthquakes, Civil Defence ordered the building's demolition in March 2011, which was carried out later that year.