Thomas Brerewood

Thomas Brerewood (c.1670 - 22 December 1746), was a 'Gentleman Entrepreneur & Fraudster'. He was deeply involved in the "Pitkin Affair" of 1705, a bankruptcy fraud that was only surpassed in scale by the South Sea Bubble of 1720. Despite the disgrace which followed, Brerewood was eventually pardoned and was able to rebuild his fortune, ending his career in Maryland as a respected man of substance and importance. In 1741, Brerewood became clerk of Baltimore County, a well-remunerated position which he held until his death on December 22, 1746.

Thomas Brerewood, who was born around 1670, was descended from a wealthy and very prominent Chester family. He was the son of Henry Brerewood, (vicar of Threekingham, Lincs. 1677-1703), and a grandson of Sir Robert Brerewood, a justice on the Court of Common Pleas during the English Civil War. He had a well-known professor, Edward Brerewood, a mayor of Chester, and a clerk of the House of Commons in his family tree. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Francis Brerewood, Treasurer of Christ's Hospital, London in June 1686 and admitted to the Fishmongers' Company in 1699. This was one of the most prestigious of the Livery Companies and, by this time, the interests of its members were not necessarily limited to the fishing industry. Indeed, it was common for members to practise another trade entirely.

By 1705, when he was in his mid-thirties, Brerewood was already a man of considerable personal fortune. Having trained as a linen Draper, or cloth merchant, he followed the money into cloth brokering and international trade. As early as 1700 he had established himself as an army regimental agent, the civilian employed by the colonel in charge of each regiment to act as paymaster and to provide uniforms. An agent earned a few hundred pounds a year in standard allowances but made his real money selling the army his cloth and lending money to officers at exorbitant rates. A single clothing assignment to a regiment might bring Brerewood thousands of pounds, and he loaned money with one hundred percent penalties for late repayment.
In the years before the Pitkin Affair broke, Brerewood served as an agent to some of the leading army commanders of the day. He was the paymaster for the Duke of Marlborough’s battalion in England while Marlborough was the commander-in-chief of the English army fighting in the Netherlands against the French during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1712). He also acted as agent for the regiments of the Duke of Schombergh; of Colonel Cadogen, the commander of a cavalry company; of Lieutenant-Colonel John Bristow of the First Foot Guards; and of the Duke of Northumberland, who would become Brerewood’s particular patron.
Obtaining agencies of such prominence required Brerewood to have the patronage of men of the highest rank and to have the wherewithal to bear the cost of clothing assignments for the years it took to recoup the investment from the soldiers’ off-reckonings, or the amount deducted from their pay for uniforms and equipment. Coming from a prominent family, Brerewood did not lack for either connections or wealth. He had apprenticed with his prosperous uncle, a linen draper in London. He had two houses in London: one in town and another in the village of Turnham Green on the western outskirts of the city. He also held a number of properties in Chester, including two shops in the commercial centre. He engaged in trade to continental Europe and the American colonies, and he had at least some stock investments. But this economic success did not satisfy Brerewood. From what it is known about his activities in the years before the Pitkin Affair, he moved from scam to scam, perhaps because, as counsel for Pitkin’s creditors opined in testimony before the House of Lords, he “thought he was not rich enough.”,

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