Born in Buenos Aires in June 1867, son of Charles Brewerton of Whetstone, Middlesex, he came to England at the age of three and was educated at University College School. Later he went to Neuenheim College in Heidelberg and then entered St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College in 1890, graduating in 1895. He worked for many years in the eye department at St Bartholomew's, being also in 1901 appointed to the staff of the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital and the Metropolitan Hospital. During the war of 1914-18 he was attached to the 4th London General Hospital. He was a member of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom for sixty-three years, being vice-president in 1925-28, and was President of the Ophthalmological section of the Royal Society of Medicine. Brewerton wrote *A Textbook of Ophthalmic Operations* in conjunction with H B Grimsdale, and the section on ophthalmic surgery in Carson's *Modern Operative Surgery*. In his young days he was an enthusiastic harrier, motor-cyclist and motorist, participating in various rallies including the John o'Groats to Land's End trials. Fishing was also one of his hobbies. He married in 1914 Olive, daughter of Dr M'Ivor Tindall of Market Harborough, by whom he had two sons and three daughters. She died on 17 July 1965. Brewerton died at Walton on Thames on 8 November 1962, aged 95.