William Brewster

William Brewster was an English Separatist whose Scrooby home became an important meeting place for the congregation later associated with the Pilgrims. After increasing pressure from the English authorities, Brewster and other members of the group fled to the Dutch Republic, where they lived first in Amsterdam and then Leiden.

William Brewster was an English Separatist leader who lived in the Dutch Republic before sailing on the Mayflower and becoming an elder of Plymouth Colony. William Brewster also worked as Pilgrim elder. William Brewster was born in Scrooby, England and died in Duxbury, Plymouth Colony.

In Karen Haden’s Naming the Dead, The novel places Baxby among the English religious exiles of Amsterdam, including historical figures Thomas Helwys, John Smyth, John Robinson and William Brewster, whose communities contributed to the later Baptist and Pilgrim traditions.