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 Brandreth early life. For some time he was in the army, but shortly before the attempted rising he lived with his wife and three children at Sutton-in-Ashfield, where he was occupied as a framework knitter. His striking personal appearance and his daring and reckless energy seem to have exercised an extraordinary influence over his associates, by whom he was known merely as the 'Nottingham Captain.' In reality he was the tool and dupe of a person of the name of Oliver, who encouraged him to undertake his quixotic enterprise, by asserting that he was acting in concert with others, who were fomenting a general insurrection thoughout [sic] England. Acting on the instructions and assurances of Oliver, Brandreth, on 9 June 1817, assembled about fifty associates, collected from adjoining districts, in Wingfield Park. Having made a number of calls at farmhouses for guns, in the course of which they shot a farm-servant dead, the insurgents were proceeding on their march towards Nottingham, which they supposed was already in the hands of their friends, when they were suddenly confronted by a company of hussars. Brandreth attempted to rally his straggling followers to meet the threatened attack of the cavalry, but they at once threw down their arms and fled in all directions. Brandreth remained in concealment till 50l. was offered for his capture, upon which a friend betrayed him to the government. He was tried by a special commission at Derby in October following, and along with two of his associates was executed at Nuns Green, Derby, 7 Nov. He is said to have been about twenty-five years of age. He refused to make any confession or to give any particulars regarding his past life.

 BRANDRETH, JOSEPH, M.D. (1746–1815), physician, was born at Ormskirk, Lancashire, in 1746. After graduating M.D. at Edinburgh in 1770, where his thesis, 'De Febribus intermittentibus,' was published, he exercised his profession in his native town until about 1776, when he succeeded to the practice of Dr. Matthew Dobson, at Liverpool, on the retirement of that gentleman to Bath. He remained at Liverpool for the remainder of his life, and became an eminently successful and popular practitioner. He was a man of wide and various reading, and possessed a most accurate and tenacious memory, which he attributed to his habit of depending on it without referring to notes. He established the Dispensary at Liverpool in 1778, and for thirty years gave great attention to the Infirmary. The discovery of the utility of applying cold in fever is ascribed to him. This remedy he described in a paper 'On the Advantages arising from the Topical Application of Cold Water and Vinegar in Typhus, and on the Use of Large Doses of Opium in certain Cases' (Med. Commentaries, xvi. p. 382, 1791). He died at Liverpool, 10 April 1815.

 BRANDRETH, THOMAS SHAW (1788–1873), mathematician, classical scholar, and barrister-at-law, descended from a family that has been in possession of Lees in Cheshire from the time of the civil war, was born 24 July 1788, the son of, M.D. [q. v.] He was sent to Eton, and was prepared by Dr. Maltby, afterwards bishop of Durham, for Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B. A. degree in 1810, with the distinctions of second wrangler, second Smith's prizeman, and chancellor's medallist, and his degree of M.A. in 1813. He was elected to a fellowship at his college, was called to the bar, and practised at Liverpool, but his taste for scientific inventions interfered not a little with his success as a barrister. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1821 for his 'distinguished mathematical attainments.' He had previously invented his logometer, or ten-foot gunter. He also invented a friction wheel and a double-check clock escapement, all of which he patented. His scientific tastes drew him into close friendship with George Stephenson, and he was one of the directors of the original Manchester and Liverpool railway, but resigned shortly before its completion. He took an active part in the survey of the line, especially of the part across Chatmoss. The famous House of Commons limitation of railway speed to ten miles an hour, which threatened to destroy the hopes of the promoters of steam locomotion, led Brandreth to invent a machine in which the weight of a horse was utilised on a moving platform, and a speed of fifteen miles an hour was expected; but the success of the 'Rocket' soon established the supremacy of steam, and Brandreth's invention was only used where steam power proved too expensive, as in 