Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/316

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Brewster
304
Brewster
    to the purposes of the Society for Promoting the Building and Enlargement of Churches and Chapels,' 1818.
  1. 'An Abridgment of Cave's Primitive Christianity.'
  2. 'Memoir of the Rev. Hugh Moises, A.M.;' privately printed in 1823, and reprinted in Nichols's 'Illustrations of Literature,' vol. v.

[Gent. Mag., May 1843, p. 538; Adamson's Newcastle School, 1846, p. 27; Nichols's Illustrations, v. 92; Nichols's Topographer and Genealogist, vol. ii. 1853; Allibone's Dict. of Lit.; Heavisides's Annals of Stockton, p. 14, who gives two curious anecdotes of Brewster's simplicity in being deceived by supposititious relics of antiquity.]

C. W. S.

BREWSTER, PATRICK (1788–1859), Scotch divine, born on 20 Dec. 1788, was the youngest of the four sons of Mr. James Brewster, and younger brother of Sir David Brewster [q. v.] In accordance with the wishes of his father, who had destined all his sons to the ministry of the Scottish church, Patrick devoted himself to theology, and received license as a probationer from the presbytery of Fordoun on 26 March 1817. In August following he was presented by the Marquis of Abercorn to the second charge of the Abbey Church of Paisley, to which he was ordained on 10 April 1818. He continued to occupy this preferment for nearly forty-one years, and died at his residence at Craigie Linn, near Paisley, on 26 March 1859. Brewster was a favourite of the working classes, and received a public funeral (4 April 1859). In 1863 a monument to his memory was erected by public subscription in Paisley cemetery.

As a preacher Brewster enjoyed an almost unrivalled local fame. His political views were extreme; he was a 'moral-force chartist,' and took an active share in the plans for carrying out the chartist programme. His whole life was one continuous succession of exciting disputes upon public questions, or with the heritors, the parish authorities, or the presbytery. This polemical spirit may be traced in the volume of his sermons entitled 'The Seven Chartist and Military Discourses libelled by the Marquis of Abercorn and other Heritors of the Abbey Parish. To which are added four other Discourses formerly published, with one or two more as a Specimen of the Author's mode of treating other Scripture Topics. With an Appendix,' 8vo, Paisley, &c., 1843. Brewster advocated the abolition of the slave trade, the repeal of the corn laws, temperance, and a national system of education. He published three single 'Sermons,' 8vo, and a vindication, in two parts, of the rights of the poor of Scotland 'against the misrepresentations of the editor of the "Glasgow Post and Reformer."' He was also a contributor to the 'Edinburgh Cyclopædia,' and furnished a 'Description of a Fossil Tree found in a Quarry at Nitshill' to the ninth volume of the 'Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.' He incurred some odium for not, like his brothers, leaving the established church of Scotland at the time of the disruption in 1843, when he was one of 'the Forty.'

[Glasgow Herald, 28 and 31 March and 5 April 1859; Christian News (Glasgow), 2 April 1859; Teviotdale Record, 2 April 1859; Renfrewshire Independent, 2 and 9 April 1859; Scott's Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, 1868; Mrs. Gordon's Home Life of Sir David Brewster, 1881; Irving's Book of Scotsmen, 1881.]

A. H. G.

BREWSTER, THOMAS, M.D. (b. 1705), translator, was the son of Benjamin Brewster of Eardisland, Herefordshire, and was born on 18 Sept. 1705. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and thence elected to St. John's College, Oxford, in 1724. He graduated B.A. in 1727, M.A. in 1732, B.M. and D.M. in 1738. He was also elected a fellow of his college. While at Oxford he published a translation of the 'Second Satire of Persius,' in English verse by itself, to see, as he says in the preface, how the public would appreciate his work. This was in 1733. The third and fourth 'Satires' were published together in 1742, the fifth in the same year, and the six satires in one volume in 1784. Brewster, after leaving the university, practised medicine at Bath.

[Robinson's Merchant Taylors' School Register, ii. 56; Graduates of Oxford; Prefaces to different editions of the Satires; Brit. Museum Catalogue.]

A. G-n.

BREWSTER, WILLIAM (1560?–1644), one of the chief founders of the colony of Plymouth, New England, was possibly a native of Scrooby, Nottinghamshire. According to the 'Memoir ' by Bradford, he was at the time of his death in his eightieth year, but Morton, secretary of the colony, states that he was eighty-four at his death, so that he was probably born in 1560. It has been conjectured that his father was either William Brewster, who was tenant at Scrooby of Archbishop Sandys, or Henry Brewster, vicar of Sutton-cum-Lound, or James Brewster, who succeeded Henry. The coat-of-arms preserved in the Brewster family in America is identical with that of the ancient Suffolk branch. Bradford states that Brewster, after obtaining some knowledge of Latin and some insight into Greek, spent a short time at the university of Cambridge, but he mentions neither the school where he made his preparatory studies, nor