Used to address a fellow-member of a trade union or guild, or a fellow Christian by evangelical preachers. Examples of the latter usage occur in e.g. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers and The Moonflower Vine, by Jetta Carleton. In The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens, Mr Humm, who is President of the Ebenezer Temperance Association, addresses his fellow-member as Brother Tadger.
He also uses this form to Brother Stiggins, who has come to address the meeting, though Brother Stiggins, thanks to Mr Weller, is in no fit state to speak about temperance, being decidedly drunk at the time. Also in this novel are examples of a legal use of ‘Brother’+last name, when a judge addresses Brother Buzfuz and Brother Snubbin. The men addressed are both Sergeants, members of a superior order of barristers (abolished in 1880) from which Common Law judges were chosen. The judge himself would therefore have been a former Sergeant. The main modern usage of ‘Brother’+last name is probably amongst trade unionists during formal meetings.
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