Brereton, Owen Salusbury

, the son of Thomas Brereton, esq. of the county Palatine of Chester, was born in 1715. He received his education partly at | Westminster-school, on the foundation, and partly at Trinity college, Cambridge, and, on the death of his father, inherited the ancient family estates in the above-mentioned county, and in Flintshire. In 1738, Mr, Brereton was called to the bar, and in 1746 became recorder of Liverpool, which office he filled with great impartiality and dignity during fifty-two years. In 1796, on his proposing to resign, the corporation requested him to retain his situation, and appointed a person to discharge its active duties.

Mr. Breretort' became a member of the society of arts in 1762; and,by his assiduity, zeal, and order, filled the distinguished office of vice-president with great credit to himself and advantage to the society, from March 1765 till his last illness in 1798. He was also an early member of the royal society and the society of antiquaries. The Archaeologia of the latter contain his “Observations on Peter Collinson’s Account of the Round Towers in Ireland;” his “Tour through South Wales;” his “Extracts from the Household Book of Henry VIII;” his “Account of a painted Window in Brereton Church, Cheshire;” and that of “A non-descript Coin,” supposed to be Philip VI. of France. Mr. Pennant has also, in his Welch Tour, described and given an engraving of several Roman antiquities found at a Roman station on his estate in Flintshire. Mr. Brereton was a bencher of the hon. society of Lincol n’s-Inn; filled the office of treasurer, and was keeper of the Black Book. He also represented the borough of Ilchester in parliament. He took the name of Salusbury with an estate, and became constable of the castle of Flint, a valuable privilege to his adjacent possessions. His domestic happiness was manifest to his numerous and respectable acquaintance, among whom were some of the most learned men of the age. He died Sept. 8, 1798, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and was interred in St. George’s chapel, Windsor. His wife was sister of sir Thomas Whitmore, K. B. and with her he lived happily for more tnan fifty years. They had five children, who all died young: he bequeathed the rents of his estates to her during her life, and after her decease, which happened in 1799, to his relations, the only son of the late general Trelawney, of Soho-square, and the second son of the rev. sir Henry Trelawney, bart. of Cornwall. 1

1 Transactions of the Society of Arts, vol. Xjx. to which a portrait of him is prefixed.
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