Brew of Wales, 1788-2010

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The below information is the family tree of Steve Brew, this website's creator and administrator. Hyperlinks are provided to link directly to a separate family tree or further information relating. A name in italics indicates the direct line of ancestry. For further information, please contact Steve directly by e-mail.

1st known Generation

John Brew (ca.1765-ca.1805) of unknown origin married Mary Taylor (ca.1766-31 August 1831) also of unknown origin, in Chepstow Parish, Monmouthshire, Wales, on 24 December 1788. According to the Parish Register, their wedding banns were published on three consecutive Sundays, the 2 November, 9 November and 16 November 1788. John is listed as a bachelor and Mary a spinster. They were married by the minister, with Thomas and Hannah Ashburner as witnesses. Interesting to note is that both John and Mary were most probably illiterate as they both undersigned their names with an 'X'. 

Their children were:

  • John, who was christened in Chepstow on 21 February 1790, and died on 5 November 1843

  • Thomas, who was christened in Chepstow on 4 December 1791, and died on 22 April 1840

Chepstow Town Crest

Evidence shows that John and Thomas' father, John, was dead by 1805. A draft apprenticeship indenture for Thomas as a Ropemaker, from October 1809, shows that he was already in an apprenticeship agreement since 1805, for which he obtained the consent of his mother, Mary. "...wh'as by Ind're bearing Date the 2d Day of July 1805...it is witnessed that the sd. Ths. Brew with the Consent of his mother Mary Brew of Chepstow afsd. widow did put himself apprentice to Saml. Brookman of Chepstow afsd. Ropemaker....". There are no records of his death in the parish registers, this is the only clue.

We believe that John (ca.1765-ca.1805) also had a brother called Thomas, as a Thomas Brew, also married to a Mary, is recorded as having christened a son, James, in Chepstow, on 8 June 1794. James would therefore have been a cousin to John and Thomas, born in 1790 and 1791. We find no further trace of James or his parents after this reference.

2nd Generation

Thomas Brew was born in Chepstow 4 December 1791, and died in Chepstow on 22 April 1840. He married Honor Perry (date unknown), who was born in Tintern, Monmouthshire, Wales, ca. 1790 and died in Chepstow, aged ca. 85, on 16 April 1875. Although we have been unable to find the registration of their marriage, assumed to be between 1815 and 1817, Honor is registered as having given birth to 12 children. They were:

3rd Generation

John Brew, was born in Chepstow and christened on 7 March 1824. He married Elizabeth Martha Ja(c)kman in Plumstead, east of London, on 24 May 1849. Elizabeth died in Plumstead 13 February 1904 and John in Greenwich, 7 months later, on 14 September 1904. Elizabeth, the daughter of a Pork Butcher, was born in Greenwich, Kent, on 22 August 1825. John was by trade a Blacksmith who became a Foreman at Woolwich Arsenal in London's east. After retirement, at the age of 60, he opened his own business as a Coal Merchant. They had 11 children: 

4th Generation

John George Brew was born in Plumstead, Kent, on 7 November 1853 and married Jane Isabella Chater on 15 July 1872 in Gateshead, County Durham, near Newcastle upon Tyne. John George left London for Newcastle upon Tyne where he worked several years for the North Eastern Railway Company, where his wife's father was a foreman, before going to sea as a third engineer for the first time in December 1873, on the steamship Opah. He earned his Certificate of Competency as a 2nd Class Marine Engineer in 1875 and as a 1st Class Engineer in 1877. He died on 15 October 1886, when the ship upon which he was serving, SS Castleton, sank in a storm off the Devonshire Coast, outside the Bristol Channel, near Bideford Bay. (See also SS Castleton... Just Tears in her Wake). His wife Jane was born on 22 April 1855 in Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne, and died in South Shields, Durham, on 25 September 1897. They had 7 boys: 

5th Generation

Albert Brew was born 7 October 1879 in Gateshead, Durham, England, and died in Sydney, Australia, on 16 April 1948. A family anecdote says that Albert, known as Bert, ran away from home and went to sea around 1897. Evidence shows he did in fact go to sea for the first time in 1897, when he was 17. Months later, he returned home after the ship he was serving on, the barque St. Cuthbert, sank off the River Plate, only to find that his mother had died shortly before. (See also The Loss of the Barque St. Cuthbert). His father had already died 11 years previous to his mother's death, and upon finding himself with no home to go back to, Albert returned to sea and commenced a career, gradually working his way  up the ladder until he became Captain of his own ship.

He served on many ships, initially as seaman, then mate, and eventually captained his first ship, Wavertree, in 1904, at the age of just 25. Wavertree took him from Liverpool, England, to ports all around the world, and finally to Newcastle, NSW, Australia, where he met and married Maggie Grace Menzies on 18 December 1907. (See also Life on a Newcastle Bulk Carrier in 1905). Maggie was born 18 April 1883 in Stockton, near Newcastle in NSW and died in Sydney on 9 August 1958.

Albert Brew, 1879-1948, from a studio picture taken ca. 1904

They had 5 children: 

6th Generation

Albert Halewood Brew was born on 10 March 1913 in Stockton, NSW, and spent some 20 years of his life at sea. By all calculations, it is highly probably he was also conceived at sea. After completing a five-year engineering apprenticeship with the Union Steamship Company in Sydney in 1934, he went to sea for the first time as Eighth Engineer, at the age of 21, on board MV Westralia. He also served as an engineer on S.S. Zealandia, MV Corio, and MV Bulolo, and rose to the rank of Third Engineer, before coming ashore to stay. However, in June 1940, he joined the Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RANVR) and saw action on several ships throughout the Second World War in the Pacific Theatre, in the Coral Sea, and around New Guinea, Indonesia, and Borneo. 

He married Iris Thelma Bannister in Sydney on 7 October 1937. Iris Thelma was born in Surrey Hills, Victoria, on 1 February 1913 but died of cancer on 12 September 1954, aged just 41. Albert and Iris Thelma had 3 children: 

Albert Halewood Brew, 1913-1976, from a studio photo taken in 1935

A few years after Iris' death, in 1960, Albert married widow Ida Ashton, nee Cook. He died in Killara, NSW, on 28 November 1976.

7th Generation

John Richard Brew was born in Sydney, NSW, on 19 August 1938, and named for his father's two dead brothers. After school, he apprenticed as an engineer with the then NSW Government Railways, but also did a stint in the Royal Australian Navy Reserve, where he rose to the rank of Sub-Lieutenant and went to sea on the aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney. Qualifying as a Civil Engineer at the University of NSW in 1963, he went on to become Chief Mechanical Engineer of the NSW Railways, then Chief Engineering Manager in 1983, before going on to direct the State Transit Authority of NSW (buses and ferries). In 1992 he returned to the railways becoming Chief Executive of the State Rail Authority of NSW, where he began as an apprentice so many years before, and retired in 1995. He married Sylvia Janet Dart on 20 January 1962. Sylvia was born 2 October 1942. They have five children: 

Their third child, Steve, is the creator and administrator of this website. He also hosts a second site concerning The Pilots of 41 Squadron RAF, 1939-1945.

Steve is the author of the biographical-historical book, "Greycliffe; Stolen Lives", published in December 2003, which is the first full account of Sydney Harbour's greatest maritime disaster, that occurred in 1927 when the liner Tahiti collided with the wooden passenger ferry Greycliffe, killing forty passengers.

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