Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/286

 :: Church,' Oxford, 1641, 4to, London, 1647, Bremen, 1701, 8vo. The Oxford edition is subjoined to a treatise called 'The original of Bishops and Metropolitans, briefly laid down by Archbishop Ussher,' &c.



BREREWOOD, ROBERT (1588–1654), judge, belonged to a family of respectable citizens of Chester, who had held municipal office. His grandfather, Robert, is called a wet-glover by trade, and was once sheriff, in 1566, and thrice mayor, in 1584, 1587, and 1600, in which last year he died in office. His father, John, the eldest son of Robert the elder, was sheriff of Chester, and his uncle [q. v.] was a scholar of eminence, the first Gresham professor of astronomy. Two of Edward Brerewood's treatises were published by his nephew in 1614, on the author's death. Robert Brerewood was born in Chester in 1588. In 1605, at the age of seventeen, he was sent to Oxford, and matriculated at Brasenose College, and two years later was admitted a member of the Middle Temple. Probably he was his uncle's heir, for in dedicating one of Edward Brerewood's posthumous works to the archbishop of Canterbury, he says of him, 'Succeeding him in his temporall blessings I doe endevour to succede him in his virtues.' He was called to the bar on 13 Nov. 1615, and continued to practise for two-and-twenty years. He also turned his attention to literature, and published some of the works of his uncle Edward. In 1637 he was appointed a judge of North Wales, probably through the local influence of his family, as he had constantly maintained his connection with Cheshire, and in 1639 he was elected recorder of his native town. He had been appointed reader at the Middle Temple in Lent term 1638, and in 1640 was raised to the degree of serjeant-at-law. In Hilary term 1641 he was appointed king's serjeant, was knighted in 1643, and raised to the bench about a month after, on 31 Jan. 1644. The king being then at Oxford, he was sworn in there. Though he continued to sit until the end of the civil war, he never sat in Westminster Hall, and after the execution of Charles I he retired into private life. He died on 8 Sept. 1654, and was buried in St. Mary's Church, Chester. He was twice married: first to Anna, daughter of Sir Randle Mainwaring of Over Peover, Cheshire, and second to Katherine, daughter of Sir Richard Lea of Lea and Dernhall, Cheshire, and had several children by each of his wives.

 BREREWOOD, THOMAS (d. 1748), poetical writer, was son of Thomas Brerewood of Horton, Cheshire, and grandson of Sir [q. v.], justice of the court of common pleas. He led the life of a country gentleman at Horton, and died in 1748. Some pieces of poetry by him were printed in the earlier numbers of the 'Gentleman's Magazine;' after his death there appeared a work by him in rhymed verse of little merit (with a eulogistic preface by an anonymous editor), entitled 'Galfred and Juetta, or the Road of Nature, a Tale in three cantos,' London, 1772, 4to, pp. 56.

 BRETLAND, JOSEPH (1742–1819), dissenting minister, son of Joseph Bretland, an Exeter tradesman, was born at Exeter 22 May 1742. He was for several years a day scholar at the Exeter grammar school, and was placed in business in 1757, but shortly after left it for the ministry. For this work he received a special education, his course of study being finished in 1766. From 1770 to 1772 he was minister of the Mint Chapel, and from the latter year until 1790 kept a classical school at Exeter. He resumed his duties at the Mint Chapel in 1789, and continued there until 1793. For three years, 1794-7, he acted as minister at the George's meeting-house in Exeter, and on the establishment in 1799 of an academy in the West of England for educating ministers among the protestant dissenters, he was appointed one of its tutors. This position he retained down to its dissolution in 1805, and he then retired into private life. In 1795 Bretland married Miss Sarah Moffatt. He died at Exeter 8 July 1819. He is described as a believer in the unity of the Deity and in the simple humanity of Jesus Christ, and he is styled a scholar of 'extensive and solid learning.' Many of his theological papers are in Dr. Priestley's 'Theological Repository' and in the 'Monthly Repository.' He composed several sermons and many prayers for the use of Unitarians, including a 'Liturgy for the Use of the Mint Meeting in Exeter,' 1792. After his death there were printed at Exeter two volumes of 'Sermons by the late Rev. Joseph Bretland, to which are prefixed Memoirs of