Tags
Bostock, Brew, Downpatrick, Manchester, Mechanisation, Shoemaker, Stafford, Strikes
Andrew Brew was born in Downpatrick, Co.Down, in 1806, one of eight children from a poor Protestant family. The town’s industries, based on the linen trade, were in decline by 1830 and Andrew became a shoemaker. He emigrated to Manchester where he married Ann Turpin, also from Ulster, in 1833. In 1841 they were living close to Angel Meadow, a notorious slum in Manchester that was home to many Irish Catholic families. In 1846 the Brews decided their prospects were better in the specialist shoe town of Stafford than in the squalor of east Manchester and they moved to Stafford.
Andrew continued to work in the shoe trade and was active in workers’ opposition to new machinery. In 1855 he took part in protests against the introduction of sewing machines by Edwin Bostock and in 1859 and 1863 he was one of the leaders of strikes against machines and the factory system. Brew and his colleagues failed to prevent the mechanisation of the industry, however, and Andrew died, probably an angry and disappointed man, in 1866. Ann survived him in Stafford until 1892.
The Brews had at least eight surviving children who mostly worked in the shoe trade. Though some descendants continued the family line in Stafford, most ultimately moved elsewhere and today there are many descendants throughout the country.
Divergent Paths 
Hi there,
While doing a family tree, I came across your site which mentions the Brew family.
Andrew Brew’s youngest son Wm John (b1857) became a decorator in Leek, Staffs. Wm John’s eldest son Wm Arthur (b1883) became a schoolteacher in Dorset.
Wm Arthur’s daughter Elsie (b1909) was my grandmother.
My mother Rosemary Brew was born in 1929 (She is now 87).
In 1951 she married an immigrant Catholic Irishman, my father who was a cloth cutter in Ireland and became a crane-driver in England.
So fascinating to find out how much my family history is entwined in the Industrial Revolution and Irish immigration. I shall be buying your book!
Best
Kevin Molloy (historian and Blue Badge Guide)
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Kevin, I’m really pleased you’ve got in touch about your Brew family ancestors – and also that you’ll be buying the book! You’ll find that Andrew Brew is used as an example at the start of the chapter of the Irish in the shoe trade. Your information on Andrew’s descendants in your line of the family is really interesting and useful to me in helping to elaborate what happened in the long term. Had your mother retained her Protestant background when she married your Catholic father or were the Brews by then not particularly religious either way?
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Hi again,
Yes, interesting about the religious aspect. My mother tells me that Wm Arthur Brew (her grandfather) was strict Loyalist Protestant. Orange Lodge too. It seems he strongly held onto his Ulster heritage. He died in 1966, the year I was born.
My grandmother, though, Elsie Brew, became a spiritualist (which seems to have been in vogue in the ’20s).
My mother, however, at the end of WWII became a nurse in a convent hospital run by Catholic nuns in south London. She met my father who worked nearby, and I guess the leap to marrying a Catholic wasn’t too great for her. We were brought up Catholic, but not strict.
Incidently, going back further with the Brews, I managed to trace our lineage back to the Isle of Man in the early 16th cent. The period immediately after the 1689 conflict seems to be when the Brews made their move from Man to Ulster. Of course, this was when William became a prominent male name in the family, alongside Andrew and Gilbert.
Best
Kevin Molloy
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Hi,
I’m Andrew Brew’s 4 x Great Grandson. I come from Andrew’s daughter Alice And I am at this minute researching the Brew Family. And I still live in Stafford.
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Chris, I’m really pleased you got in touch and that you have confirmed there are still descendants of Andrew Brew in Stafford. I’ll contact you at your e-mail address and send you the genealogy I have of Andrew’s family. I’d be really interested to know the long-term genealogy of your part of the family, since my trace of it stops at the end of the nineteenth century.
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Hi, this is so interesting, thank you so much. I’m on my ancestry journey now about two years. Each day it fascinates me more and more. And your writing about Andrew Drew intrigued me even more. I’m wondering if the Andrew Drew that you write about in your book could be related to me? I found out that my great great great granddad Bartholemu McGrew from Northern Ireland ( I’m from and live in Meath in Ireland) was a shoemaker and travelled around Ireland and settled in Trim, Co.meath and died there in 1885. I’m wondering if that Andrew Drew is Bartle’s brother? As Bartle had a son called Andrew who was also a shoe maker around Ireland and who also settled in trim and is buried in Newtown cemetery in trim. During my research I have come across many wrong spelling of surnames due to poor handwriting and transcription errors so that is why I’m linking the surname McGrew with Drew. And the fact that they were shoemakers. Unfortunately the name Mcgrew does not exist around Trim anymore. Only the genes live on. Bartholemu Mcgrew was born around 1805, that’s all I can find in our Irish records. Thank you, Marie. 31/5/2019. 😊
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Dear Marie, many thanks for your comments – I’m pleased you find my site interesting. I’m afraid I don’t think there is a link between your ancestors and the Brew family that I have described. I’m sure their name was Brew, not Drew as in your case, and they made a direct move from Ulster to England. I have no record of them having any links to Co. Meath. I agree with your point about transcription errors and handwriting but I’m clear the Brew family were never written as ‘Drew’. I think you have to follow other paths in your searches! Best wishes, John.
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