William Mew
c. 1602–1669
Eastington (Gloucestershire); mechanical inventor noted by Aubrey.
Biography
Of Magdalen Hall Oxford, then Eastington in Gloucestershire (succeeding Capel) and later Cromhall. Mew was a country Presbyterian whose Assembly contribution was steady but unobtrusive — but John Aubrey, who knew him in Gloucestershire, remembered him in Brief Lives as much for his ingenious mechanical inventions (a calculating organ, a 'perpetual-motion' mill, geometrical instruments) as for his ecclesiastical career. Mew was a small example of the Hartlib circle's broad reach — the Puritan polymath-minister of the parish workshop. Ejected in 1662; died in 1669.
English Presbyterian divine
The great majority of the sitting members were English parish ministers of Presbyterian conviction. They formed the drafting core of the Assembly, manning its three standing committees and supplying most of the text of the Confession, the two Catechisms, and the Directory for Public Worship.