Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Branthwaite, William
BRANTHWAITE, WILLIAM, D.D. (d. 1620), translator of the Bible, was a member of an ancient family possessed of some property in the county of Norfolk, and one branch of which was settled at Hethel, near Wymondham. He was entered at Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1578, and there took his B.A. degree in 1582. Two years afterwards, in 1584, he was admitted a fellow of Emmanuel College, which had been founded in the earlier part of that year. He proceeded to .the usual degrees M.A. in 1586, B.D. in 1593, and D.D. in 1598 and in 1607 was elected master of Gonville and Caius College. In 1607-11 he was on one of the two Cambridge committees appointed by James I to revise the translation of the Bible; the part of the work which fell to his committee being the Apocrypha, for which he was especially fitted by an extensive knowledge of Hebrew. He died during his vice-chancellorship in February 1619-20, leaving his books and considerable property to Caius College. There is a portrait of him in the Lodge of Caius, and in the gallery of Emmanuel College, to which foundation also he was a benefactor.
[Documents relating to the University and Colleges of Cambridge, ii. 389; Fuller's History of Cambridge, p. 226; Westcott's History of the English Bible, p. 116; references to property, church preferments, &c., held by various members of the family will be found in Blomefield's Norfolk.]