lder William Brewster was fourth Signer of Mayflower Compact. (DAR) Lineage Book P.176 Vol. 14.

William Brewster of Scrooby, England, was Founder of Plymouth Colony and Ruling Elder of Plymouth Plantation. (DAR LINEAGE BOOK VOL. 15 P.11) He was a Deputy to General Court, 1636, and Caplain to a Military Company. (DAR LINEAGE BOOK VOL. 15 P.103). He served under Capt. Myles Standish against the Indians. (Lineage Book Vol 8).

Passenger on Mayflower accompanied by his wife Mary and their sons Love and Wrestling. Soruce Plymouth Colony p 252-2 [MACALGED.GED]

William Brewster III, b. about 1565, died in Plymouth, Mass., 20 April 1644, was to become the ruling elder on the Mayflower and at Plymouth in New England. In 1580 he matriculated at Peterhouse College in Cambridge, at which University, in St. John’s College, his uncle Francis Smythe, ?1540-?1604, vicar of Crowle, co. Lincoln, had been schooled, and two of his first cousins, Edward Smythe ?1553-1585,^A Bachelor of Divinity, and John Grene "of Barnby upon Don," ?1555-after 1591, were likewise students.^B Is it not likely that one or more of these kinfolk had influence in aiding Brewster to get employment in the service of William Davison? The latter was friend of Thomas Cartwright,^C eminent puritan, also identified prominently with St. John’s College, and author of the book Brewster printed at Leyden, a copy of which is now in the headquarters building in Plymouth, Mass.

As to the identity of the wife (or wives) of Elder William Brewster, proof has been wanting; if he had a daughter Elizabeth (perhaps the child buried in Leyden 20 June 1609), the will of Robert Hartley of Austerfield, dated 11 April 1606^D, leaving a small legacy to Elizabeth Brewster, may prove to be a clue to her mother’s maiden name.

On the other hand, William Dean Howells asserted in 1905 that William Brewster’s wife was born and bred in Duke Street, London, although he gave no proof.^E Duke Street, then styled "the Duke's place," was in the locale where several Mayflower passengers had ties,^F hence this may be a clue worth investigating.

1. Will of Edward Smythe, bachelor of Divinity, of Cambridge, 20 March 1584, bequeathed to wife Frances his property in Kingston upon Hull...witnesses: Harry Rands, John Green, and Richard Worchester (P.C.C. 53 Brudenell). The probate sentence names "Richard Knowles de Coldashby in co. Northampton", who was probably that Richard who left a will dated 2 Jan. 1601/2, proved at Northampton, wherein the only legacy was to a grandson Richard who was to be in ward to testator’s son-in-law Francis Belgrave. The arms of this Knowles are the same as those of the great Sir Francis Knollys (c. 1514-1596) except for a canton in the shield. This might have indicated that they were cousins; if so, the Smythe-Knowles marriage might have brought Brewster’s cousin into the circle of kinship the important Knollys who in 1584 was vehemently supporting Thomas Cartwright’s stand against the bishops’ ambition and covetousness; see Dictionary of National Biography under Knollys, Sir Francis. As Cartwright was a friend of Davison, this might have had a part in the employment of Brewster by Davison. Cf. Charles H. Cooper, Anthenae Cantabrigienses (1861), 2:148.
2. John Venn and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, part I, under the names: Brewster, William; Brewster, James; Grene, John; Smith, Francis; Smith, Edward.
3. A. F. Scott Pearson, Thomas Cartwright and Elizabethan Puritanism, 1535-1603 (Cambridge University Press, 1925), p. 210, 211, 436-438.
4. York P & E Court, 30:177.
5. William Dean Howells, London Films (London, 1905), p. 189-191.
6. Charles Edward Banks, The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers (N. Y., 1929), p. 11-16, especially p. 12 and the map facing it.

[John G. Hunt, "The Mother of Elder William Brewster of the Mayflower," NEHGR 124:251-254]

Brewster, William (1567-1644), leader of the Pilgrims and a founder of the Plymouth Colony, born probably in Scrooby, England. He studied briefly at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge. From 1584 to 1587 he was in the service of an English ambassador, William Davison, and after 1590 he was bailiff and postmaster in Scrooby. There he organized a group of religious dissenters, often called the Pilgrims, who in 1606 separated from the Church of England. Two years later Brewster and some Pilgrims, to avoid persecution, moved to the Netherlands, settling in Leiden. He was the ruling elder of the sect, and he supported himself by teaching and by publishing religious books that had been banned by the English government. With another Pilgrim leader, William Bradford, he returned to England in 1619 and secured a patent from the Virginia Company for a tract of land in America. Brewster remained in England until September 16, 1620, when he boarded the Mayflower for the trip to America. He was a signer of the Mayflower Compact and of the constitution of Plymouth Colony, and he continued as a leader of the colony. Until 1629, when an ordained minister was appointed, Brewster was the only church officer at the Plymouth Colony. [Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia]

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