William Brereton, 1st Baron Brereton (1550 – 1 October 1631) was an English politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

at various times between 1597 and 1622. He was created a peer in the

Peerage of Ireland The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five divisi ...

in 1624 as

Baron Brereton Baron Brereton, of Leighlin in the County of Carlow, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created on 11 May 1624 for Sir William Brereton, of Brereton, Cheshire. William Brereton was from an old and distinguished family in Cheshire, a ...

Biography

Brereton was the son of Sir William Brereton of

Brereton, Cheshire Brereton is a civil parishes in England, civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 census, the population of the entire civil parish was 1,012,

and was baptised on 6 February 1550. He was about nine when his father died in 1559 and he succeeded to the extensive family estates. He was educated at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and was awarded a BA in 1568. He was admitted at

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

in 1569. From 1573, he was JP for Cheshire and was

High Sheriff of Cheshire This is a list of Sheriffs (and after 1 April 1974, High Sheriffs) of Cheshire. The Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most ...

from 1581 to 1582. In 1586, he built a mansion at Brereton (

Brereton Hall Brereton Hall is an Elizabethan prodigy house north of Brereton Green, next to St Oswald's Church in the civil parish of Brereton, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I liste ...

) which was similar to

Rocksavage Rocksavage or Rock Savage was an Elizabethan mansion, which served as the primary seat of the Savage family. The house now lies in ruins, at in Clifton (now a district of Runcorn), Cheshire, England. Built for Sir John Savage, MP in 1565–156 ...

, the house of his father-in-law Sir John Savage. He was knighted in 1588. He was commissioner for musters in 1595 and in 1596. History of Parliament Online – WilliamBrereton
/ref> In 1597, Brereton was elected

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

. He was elected MP for Cheshire again in 1614 and in 1621. He had an estate near

Old Leighlin Old Leighlin () is a small village in County Carlow, Ireland, 3.5 km west of Leighlinbridge. The site was at one time one of the foremost monastic houses in Leinster, with 1500 monks in residence. It was the location for a church synod in ...

, from which he and his heirs were

absentee landlord In economics, an absentee landlord is a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the property's local economic region. The term "absentee ownership" was popularised by economist Thorstein Veblen's 1923 book ...

s. He was created Baron Brereton of Leighlin in the County of Carlow on 11 May 1624. William Brereton died at the age of about 80 and was buried at Brereton.

Family

William Brereton married Margaret Savage, daughter of Sir John Savage of Rocksavage, Cheshire, and Lady Elizabeth Manners (d. 1570), daughter of

Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland {{Infobox noble, type , honorific_suffix = KG , name = Thomas Manners , title = 1st Earl of Rutland , image = Thomas_Manners,_1st_Earl_of_Rutland.jpg , caption = Effigy of Manners, St Mary's C ...

. They had four sons and four daughters. Most of them died young, and two who survived to marry were: *Mary Brereton, who married on 18 July 1608,

Henry O'Brien, 5th Earl of Thomond Henry O'Brien, 5th Earl of Thomond PC (Ire) (1588–1639), styled Lord Ibrickane until 1624, was summoned to the House of Lords of the Irish Parliament of 1613–1615. Birth and origins Henry was born the eldest son of Donogh O'Brien and ...

* Sir John Brereton (born 25 March 1591), heir apparent, who married Anne Fitton, daughter of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, and died in the lifetime of his father. With his wife Anne (who married secondly, Sir Gilbert Gerard), he had three sons and two daughters: ** William Brereton (1611–1664), successor of his grandfather as 2nd Baron Brereton. **John Brereton (1624 – 22 October 1656) **Edward Brereton **Mary Brereton, who married Sir Michael Hutchinson. **Jane Brereton (died 1648), the eventual heiress of the family, who married around 1646, Sir Robert Holte. Their son was

Sir Charles Holte, 3rd Baronet ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brereton, William Brereton, 1st Baron 1550 births 1631 deaths English MPs 1597–1598 English MPs 1614 English MPs 1621–1622

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

Barons Brereton Peers of Ireland created by James I