leader of the Plymouth Colony in New England.

Brewster spent his early life at Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, and acquired his first Separatist ideas while at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, which he attended for a short time. In 1583 he became the personal secretary to William Davison, an Elizabethan diplomat. Because of disillusionment with diplomatic and court life, and because of his father's illness, he returned to Scrooby (1589), where he became the leader of the Puritan congregation that separated from the established church in 1606.

He and John Robinson led the Puritan migration to Amsterdam in 1608 and the move to Leiden in 1609. While in Holland, Brewster made his living by printing Puritan books by English authors and exporting them to England; pressure by the English government eventually forced him to abandon that enterprise. He accompanied the first group of Pilgrims on the Mayflower in 1620. Brewster, the only university-trained member of the Plymouth community, was the real leader of the church. As its senior elder he dominated the formulation of its doctrines, worship, and practices. He was not a magistrate, but by virtue of his close association with the governor, William Bradford, he played a major role in civil as well as religious affairs.