Editing David Brewster (section)

==Family==
[[File:David brewster group.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Calvert Jones]], Lady Brewster (Jane Kirk Purnell), Mrs. Jones, David Brewster and Miss Parnell (seated)]]

Brewster married twice. His first wife, Juliet Macpherson (c. 1776–1850), was a daughter of James Macpherson (1736–1796), a probable translator of [[Ossian]] poems. They married on 31 July 1810 in Edinburgh and had four sons and a daughter:<ref>Gordon, p. 45</ref>
*James (1812–)
*Charles Macpherson (1813–1828), drowned.<ref name=g244/>
*David Edward Brewster (17 August 1815 - 1878) became a military officer (Lieutenant Colonel) serving in India and laird of the Belleville estate in [[Badenoch]] on the death of his aunt, Ann Macpherson, in 1862.<ref name=g244/><ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.stanford.edu/group/auden/cgi-bin/auden/individual.php?pid=I14167&ged=auden-bicknell.ged| title = Lieut.-Col. David Edward Brewster Macpherson of Balavil (I14167)| access-date = 18 September 2011| archive-date = 20 November 2012| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121120200323/http://www.stanford.edu/group/auden/cgi-bin/auden/individual.php?pid=I14167&ged=auden-bicknell.ged| url-status = dead}}</ref><ref name = "MackenzieTaylor2024">Mackenzie, Mary, and Taylor, David (2024), ''Glen Banchor: A Highland Glen and its People'', Badenoch Heritage, [[Kingussie]], pp. 117, 118, 133 & 134, {{isbn|9781913529154}}</ref>
*Henry Craigie (1816–1905) became a military officer and photographer.<ref name=g244>Gordon, p. 244</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/photographer/Henry_Craigie__Brewster/|title=Biography of Henry Craigie Brewster from Metropolitan Museum of Art}}</ref> 
* Margaret Maria Gordon (1823–1907) wrote a book on Brewster,<ref>Gordon</ref> which is considered the most comprehensive description of his life.

In 1833, Brewster's sister-in-law, Ann Macpherson, became laird of Belleville on the death of her half-brother, James.  Brewster interested himself in the affairs of the estate with a view to promoting [[agricultural improvement]].  He gave the tenants the security of seven-year leases but his overbearing behaviour towards both them and their laird made him unpopular locally.<ref name = "MackenzieTaylor2024"/>

Brewster married a second time in Nice, on 26 (or 27) March 1857, to Jane Kirk Purnell (b. 1827), the second daughter of Thomas Purnell of Scarborough.<ref>Gordon, p. 151</ref> Lady Brewster famously fainted at the [[1860 Oxford evolution debate|Oxford evolution debate]] of 30 June 1860. Brewster died in 1868, and was buried at [[Melrose Abbey]], next to his first wife and second son.<ref name=odnb/><ref>Gordon, p. xiv</ref> The physics building at [[Heriot-Watt University]] is named in his honour.