Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/253

 in Dr. Hibbert-Ware's ‘Lancashire Memorials of the Rebellion, 1715’ (pp. 230–4). A passage in Byrom's diary proves that Deacon composed them (see Byrom's diary for 1 Sept. 1725). The ‘Declarations’ were designed to promote not only Jacobite but nonjuring principles. They were intended to give publicity to the independent religious communion promoted by the nonjurors, under the title of ‘The True Catholic Nonjuring Church of England.’

In the autumn of 1716 Deacon deemed it prudent to withdraw to Holland, where he lived on his own private resources. On his return to London he became a pupil of Dr. Mead, the celebrated physician, whom he styles ‘the best of friends, and the very worthy and learned Dr. Mead.’ In 1719 or 1720 he settled in Manchester, where he practised medicine with considerable success. In a letter written to Dr. Byrom in 1731 he describes himself as ‘a nonjuring parson who mortifies himself with the practice of physic (pour accomplir sa penance), and condescends to a half-crown subscription [for his translation of Tillemont] rather than prostitute his conscience.’ In or about 1733 he was consecrated a nonjuring bishop by Bishop Archibald Campbell (d. 1744) [q. v.] and Roger Lawrence, the author of ‘Lay Baptism Invalid’ (, Apology for the Doctrine of Apostolical Succession, p. 226).

During the rebellion of 1745 three of his sons joined the standard of Charles Edward Stuart in what was called the Manchester regiment, commanded by Colonel Townley. At this time Deacon apparently had an interview with the Pretender at his lodgings, and the circumstance afterwards rendered him obnoxious to the government. According to his own statement his house was searched for papers with military violence, and was more than once attacked by a furious mob and an unrestrained soldiery. Owen charges Deacon with having visited the court of the Pretender to obtain absolution for having sworn allegiance to George I. On 17 July 1746, Thomas Theodorus Deacon, one of the doctor's sons, was indicted before a special commission in Southwark for appearing in arms against the king as captain in the Manchester regiment, and, being found guilty, was executed, with eight of his companions, on Kennington Common, on the 30th of the same month. After he was decapitated his head was taken to Manchester and fixed on the Exchange. It is related that on one occasion the doctor, when passing by the building, took off his hat and remained for a short time absorbed in silent prayer, as was conjectured, for the departed spirit of his son. This appears the more probable, as he strenuously defended the practice of ‘offering and praying for the faithful departed, as delivered by scripture and by tradition.’ His son Charles, who also engaged in the rebellion, was taken on 11 Jan. 1749 from the new gaol, Southwark, to Gravesend for transportation during life; and another son died while being conveyed from Manchester to London for trial.

Long before these occurrences Deacon had founded an episcopal church in Manchester, which according to his own notions was to be strictly catholic, though not papal. He styled it ‘The True British Catholic Church,’ and its members assembled for worship at his house in Fennel Street, adjoining the inn known till 1886 as the Dog and Partridge (, Remains, ii. 396 n.) It seems that he received some support from the Manchester clergy. ‘He has inveigled such numbers of your parishioners,’ says the writer of a remonstrance to the clergy of the college, ‘that, not able to do the business himself, he has ordained a queer dog of a barber, a disbanded soldier of the Pretender, who enlisted as a volunteer for him in the late rebellion, and sent for some young fellow from London to join him in his pseudo-ministry.’ Another account, however, states that ‘at Dr. Deacon's schism shop in Fennel Street, where he vended his spiritual packets and practised his spiritual quackery on Sundays, and where Tom Padmore was his under-strapper, his congregation did not consist of above a few scores of old women;’ while a third account alleges that if the doctor's actual congregation was small, the influence of his principles was to be detected in the assent given to them by persons who still continued to attend the collegiate church. It was rumoured that a discovery had been made, during the examination of the papers of one of the deceased fellows, that he and his associates of the collegiate church, in conjunction with Deacon, had in 1745 entered into a correspondence with the pope, craving that the principles set forth in the doctor's ‘True British Catholic Church of the fourth century’ might entitle them to be regarded as communicants of the church of Rome. One pamphleteer has recorded the alleged reply of the pope to the effect that his holiness was very sensible of the sufferings of his Manchester friends, but could by no means sanction a schism in the church.

He died at Manchester on 10 Feb. 1753, and was buried in St. Ann's churchyard, where an altar-tomb was erected over his remains, with an inscription which describes him as ‘the greatest of sinners and the most unworthy of primitive bishops.’ Though his