The English-born Pilgrim leader William Brewster (ca. 1566-1644) was the ruling elder of the Separatist group at Scrooby, England, before he and the congregation migrated to Holland and, finally, to New Plymouth in America.

William Brewster was 10 years old when his father was appointed postmaster and bailiff at Scrooby Manor, an official resting place on the main road from London to Edinburgh. In 1580 Brewster entered Cambridge University but left without a degree. He served briefly in the diplomatic service, returned to Scrooby to assist his father, and became postmaster upon his father's death in 1590. Brewster probably became a Puritan at Cambridge; but how he turned to Separatism, an extreme form of Puritanism, is unexplained. Nonetheless, when a Separatist congregation was formed at Scrooby, Brewster was its most important member, and services were held in the manor house.

The harassment of religious dissenters by James I convinced the Scrooby...