The Rev Thomas Thomas 1741 - 1826

• Biography
• Poem

Biography

Rev. Thomas Thomas was born on 24th November 1741 at Castell Gorfod in the parish of Trelech ar Bettws in Carmarthenshire.Thomas was one of three children of George and Catherine Thomas. The elder son, Samson Thomas, became a Calvinist Methodist Minister and his sister Rosamond married Thomas Howell in 1769.

Rev Thomas Thomas was ordained and was appointed as rector of St Peter’s Church in the parish of Isham, Northamptonshire by the then Bishop of Peterborough, John Hinchcliffe in  1773. (In the 18th c Anglican Church patronage was paramount.; the awards of livings depending on patronage or access to influence.

 So in 1773 Rev Thomas described his appointment, great journey and the expenses and effort that  occurred:

Sept. 18th 1773: Money expended on account of Isham Superior rectory, Northamptonshire.
A journey of 215 miles to Crewe hall, Cheshire to the 13th of Peterborough (Bishop) concerning Isham in very rainy weather, partly in chaise, partly with post horses- paid Mr Sumpter 2s 6d each day for his horse.

Slept : 18th Sept at Lutterworth;  19th at Nantwich; 20th Wolseley Bridge; 21st Tamworth and 22nd Market Harborough. The whole expenses occasioned by that journey are £6-9s-7d

On 8th October a journey to Delapre Abbey near Northampton to the Bishop of Peterborough for institution £1-1-10 d. Instituted to Isham 9th  October 1773 by John Hinchcliffe £8. Thomas’s Patron was Thomas Rokeby, Arthingworth

Then five years later by 1788 Rev. Thomas Thomas was living in the Manor House (Manor Farm House), 39 Main Street, Kibworth Harcourt.

On 21st September 1796 at St Wilfrid’s Church, Kibworth Beauchamp the Rev. Thomas age 55  married Elizabeth Foxton aged 51 years. Their marriage was conducted by the Rev. Jeremiah Goodman, Headmaster of the Kibworth Grammar School. Their marriage bond* names Richard Coltman, yeoman, grazier and Churchwarden, of East Farndon promising with Rev. Thomas Thomas the £200 surety.

Elizabeth Thomas nee Foxton  died on the 6th September 1797, aged 52, sadly this was within a year of her marriage. Following her death Thomas writes a letter  October 8th 1798 to his brother Samson in Pembrokeshire describing his grief at his wife’s death and saying,

‘ The coming of death was in so gradual a manner, that for days before her departure, she ordered everything about her burying without any signs of confusion. She told her maid to pin the cap and handkerchief ready against the time they should be wanted for use whilst the shroud was to be fetched from Harborough. She was very fond of reading pious books and conversing about a future world. She retained her senses to within a very little time of her last moment and expired in the comfortable persuasion that Christ is the only saviour.’ He  describes in detail her memorial in St. Wilfred’s church and signs off ‘Caredig Frawd’.

On Thursday 5th December 1805 Re. Thomas notes that he held a ‘Thanksgiving for Lord Nelson’s Victory on the 21st October off Cape Trafalgar at East Farndon church.

Rev Thomas’s sister Rosamond and her husband, Thomas Howell, wrote from the family farm Carmarthenshire to Rev. Thomas on 6th February 1805. They were asking about how to raise £150 for ‘India equipment’ for their youngest son John, who wished to enter employment as an assistant surgeon with the East India Company. This money was to purchase clothes, a surgeon’s apothecary kit and to fund his entry into the E.I.C. It would seem that this money was found by Rev Thomas for his nephew ( I assume this to be so as in his will John Howell leaves £300 to his uncle Rev Thomas in a codicil repaying his kindness)

Not only had Rev Thomas been instrumental in mentoring, educating and financing his Welsh nephew John Howell (through his medical training at the London Hospital)  but I have also recently discovered at Northampton Record Office letters that confirmThomas also financed the training of another surgeon at St Thomas’s and Guy’s hospitals namely his nephew Poyntz Adams (his late wife’s sister’s son.)

John Howell also writes to his uncle about a possible appointment and receives a withering reply criticising his spelling errors in his letter. Rev. Thomas tells him firmly ‘to use a dictionary’ however his uncle includes a draft for £20 expenses in the letter encouraging him to find a position locally in England. However, as a young man will do in March 1806 John Howell took up  with the East India Company a position as ‘an assistant surgeon recommended for a position in Bengal’, India and sailed on the “Matilda’ to Calcutta.

The following year Thomas is still living in The Manor House, Kibworth Harcourt and in a letter to his niece, dated 31st October 1807 he says that he has ‘leased some grounds from Merton College for 21 years renewable every 7th year by paying a fine for its renewal.’ (Merton College owned the Manor House and the land at rear of the houses in Main Street and Albert Street, Kibworth Harcourt.)

In a letter to his recently married niece Phoebe Williams at Hendre Eynon in Pembrokeshire he offers some sound marital advice:

“ I hope that years will only tend to increase your friendship and that you will prove, as originally designed by the appointment of marriage, a mutual blessing to each therein worldly affairs and spiritual concerns. I will add no more now on this subject, than I trust you will always consult each other’s felicity not merely as matter of duty, but from habit, choice and sincere affection, which will make the bonds of wedlock quite agreeable and delightful.’

In 1814 Rev.Thomas Thomas is appointed Rector of St Dionysius Church
Kelmarsh and then Curate of the Church of St. John the Baptist at East Farndon. As the curate at East Farndon Parish Rev Thomas was assistant to the Rector, William Brooks, who was also Rector of St Johns Church, Coventry where he spent the majority of his time. Rev. Thomas was left to administer the East Farndon Parish and to sort out the many problems and issues which ensued. The correspondence between Thomas and the Bishop of Peterborough outlines issues with the enclosures and the upkeep of tenements and buildings- not least the fabric of the church which needed much attention.

In 1815 we learn from a letter that Rev. Thomas’ sister Rosamund Howell has died in  Carmarthenshire and his nephew, her son John Howell surgeon for the East India Company has also died in 1819 in  Bengal, India aged 36 years.

On 10th October 1818 Rev.Thomas bought a farm Penrhubeily from his cousin Re. James Howell in his home parish of Trelech ar Bettws hoping he says one day to return there to his dear ‘Kingdom of Deheubarth’. Interestingly, we see that on the same day his clerk sold the lease of the farm for a term of 21 years for the sum of £32 annually to Benjamin Howell, farmer, (a nephew).

In 1824 Rev.Thomas Thomas, aged 83 years, retired from his clerical positions at Isham and East Farndon. Noting in a family letter that he had lived in Kibworth Harcourt and the neighbouring area for 56 years. However, his love for his homeland and Welsh culture never left him. His family letters and indeed his church records are often written in both Welsh, his native tongue and English.

Rev.Thomas Thomas is recorded in Crockford’s Clerical Directory, as being a an ordained minister of the Anglican church from 1773 to 1826 the year when he died on 20th May. In 1885 the family executors of his estate in Wales sold The Manor House, (Manor Farm House) Kibworth Harcourt for £4450 to another nephew he had educated and financed: John Philipps who had lived there with him as a proxy son. John Philipps inherited a love for antiquities from his uncle and I  kept all his uncle’s letters, papers etc. in a trunk in the attic.
( see John Philipps 1801 – 1867 – Modern)

Northamptonshire Notes and Queries:1884

A Chest of Old Manuscripts.- The following is a rough list of the principal contents of a chest of manuscripts, broadsides etc.from the old manor house of Kibworth Harcourt, in Leic.
A portion of this collection is now in the Bodleain Library

A poster was discovered recently amongst the Rev. Thomas’s papers/correspondence  at the Northampton Record Office advertising a production of ‘School for Scandal’ a 1781 comic opera to music by Samuel Arnold with a libretto by John O’Keeffe. This includes an American romantic comedy ‘Gretna Green’ written by Grace Livingston Furniss. This suggests that Rev.Thomas may have attended the Kibworth Theatre
(see The Kibworth Theatre-Modern)

*Marriage bonds were used when a couple applied to marry by licence and were not married by banns.  The marriage allegation was a document in which the couple alleged (or frequently just the groom alleged on behalf of both of them) that there were no impediments to the marriage.  The marriage bond set a financial penalty on the groom and his bondsman (usually a close friend or relative) in case the allegation should prove to be false. Marriage bonds ceased to be used after 1823.

Research and written piece by Jeni Molyneux March 2020

Acknowledgements
Pembrokeshire Record Office
Northamptonshire Record Office
National Library of Wales
The Gentleman’s Magazine

Poem

In Remembrance of native soil

Here are  two verses of poetry by the Rev Thomas Thomas about Tre-lech

Reproduced on these pages with the permission  of Northamptonshire Record Office (Contributed by Jeni Molyneux)