BREWER, THOMAS (b. 1611), a celebrated performer on the viol, was born (probably in the parish of Christchurch, Newgate Street) in 1611. His father, Thomas Brewer, was a poulterer, and his mother's Christian name was True. On 9 Dec. 1614 Brewer was admitted to Christ's Hospital, although he was only three years old. Here he remained until 20 June 1626, when he left school, and was apprenticed to one Thomas Warner. He learnt the viol at Christ's Hospital from the school music-master, but although his compositions are met with in most of the printed collections of Playford and Hilton, published in the middle of the seventeenth century, nothing is known as to his biography. His printed works consist chiefly of rounds, catches, and part-songs, but in the Music School Collection at Oxford are preserved three instrumental pieces, consisting of airs, pavins, corrantos, &c., for which kind of composition he seems to have been noted. Two pieces by him are in Elizabeth Rogers's Virginal Book (Add. MS. 10337). In a collection of anecdotes (Harl. MS. 6395), formed by one of the L'Estrange family in the seventeenth century, the following story is told on the authority of a Mr. Jenkins: 'Thom: Brewer, my Mus: seruant, through his Pronenesse to good-Fellowshippe, hauing attaind to a very Rich and Rubicund Nose; being reproued by a Friend for his too frequent vse of strong Drinkes and Sacke; as very Pernicious to that Distemper and Inflamation in his Nose. Nay Faith, sayes he, if it will not endure sack, it's no Nose for me.' The date of Brewer's death is unknown.
[Bodl. Lib. MSS. Wood, 19 D (4), No. 106; Records of Christ's Hospital (communicated by Mr. R. Little); Hawkins's Hist. of Music (ed. 1853), ii. 569; Burney's Hist. of Music, iii. 478; Catalogue of Music School Collection; Harl. MS. 6395; Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 275 a.]
BREWER, BRIWERE, or BRUER, WILLIAM (d. 1226), baron and judge, the son of Henry Brewer (Dugdale, Baronage), was sheriff of Devon during the latter part of the reign of Henry II, and was a justice itinerant in 1187. He bought land at Ilesham in Devon, and received from the king the office of forester of the forest of Bere in Hampshire. A story told by Roger of Wendover (iv. 238), which represents Richard as whispering to Geoffrey FitzPeter and William Brewer his reverence for the bishops who were consulting together before him, tends to show, if indeed the king were not merely acting, that he treated Brewer as a familiar friend. When Richard left England, in December 1189, he appointed Brewer to be one of the four justices to whom he committed the charge of the kingdom. Brewer was at first a subordinate colleague of Hugh, bishop of Durham, the chief justiciar. Before long, however, Bishop Hugh was displaced by the chancellor, William Longchamp, bishop of Ely. When the king heard of the insolence and unpopularity of the chancellor, he wrote to Brewer and his companions, telling them that if he was unfaithful in his office they were to act as they thought best as to the grants of escheats and castles, and wrote also to the chancellor, bidding him act in conjunction with his colleagues. At a great council held at St. Paul's, on 8 Oct. 1191, the Archbishop of Rouen produced a letter from the king appointing him justiciar in place of Longchamp, and naming Brewer and others as his assistants. Brewer evidently was prominent in the proceedings taken against the chancellor; for his name is on the list of the bishops and barons whom the displaced minister threatened with excommunication. In 1193 he left England to assist the king, then in captivity, at his interview with the Emperor Henry VI. He arrived at Worms on 29 July, the day on which the terms of the king's release were finally arranged. After this matter was settled, Richard sent him, in company with the Bishop of Ely 'and other wise men,' to arrange a peace with Philip of France. The treaty was signed on 9 July at Nantes. On the king's return to England in the spring of 1194, Brewer and others who had been concerned in the proceedings against the chancellor were deprived of the sheriffdoms they then held, but were appointed to other counties, 'as if the king, although he could not dispense with their services, wished to show his disapproval of their conduct in the matter' (Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 503). A serious dispute having arisen between Geoffrey, archbishop of York, and his chapter, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was at that time the justiciar, sent Brewer with other judges to York in July to settle the quarrel. They summoned the archbishop, and on his refusing to appear seized his manors, and caused the canons whom he had displaced to be again installed. Brewer also appears as one of the justices who were sent on the great visitation, or 'iter,' in the following September. In 1196 he founded the abbey of Torr in Devon, as a house of Præmonstratensian canons (Dugdale, Mon. vi. 923). During the reign of Richard he became lord of the manor of Sumburne, near Southampton, and held the sheriffdoms of Devonshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire,
