Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/190

 against the influence of the princess dowager. In 1757 he followed John Gilbert [q. v.], as bishop of Salisbury and also as clerk of the closet, and in 1761 was translated to Winchester in succession to Benjamin Hoadly (1676–1761) [q. v.] He seems to have been a useful bishop as well as a good preacher, though Hurd (, Life of Hurd, p. 119) speaks rather contemptuously of ‘Honest Tom's’ laxity about patronage.

He died at Winchester House, Chelsea, on 1 May 1781, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral. He married Susan, daughter of Thomas Mulso of Twywell, Northamptonshire; her brother Thomas married the bishop's sister, and their daughter, Mrs. Hester Chapone [q. v.], spent much of her time after her husband's death with her uncle and aunt at Farnham Castle. Mrs. Thomas died on 19 Nov. 1778, leaving three daughters, who married respectively Newton Ogle, dean of Winchester; William Buller, afterwards bishop of Exeter; and Rear-admiral Sir Chaloner Ogle.

There are portraits of the bishop at the palaces of Salisbury and Lambeth, and a fine mezzotint engraving (three-quarter length in robes of the Garter) by R. Sayer from a picture by Benjamin Wilson, published on 24 Jan. 1771. Richardson the novelist, in a letter to Miss Mulso, alludes to ‘the benign countenance of my good lord of Peterborough,’ a phrase which is borne out by the portraits.

John Thomas published ten or eleven separate discourses, chiefly spital, fast, or charity sermons. He is credited with some scholarship, and with taste in letter-writing.

[Cassan's Bishops of Salisbury, iii. 281–283, and Bishops of Winchester, ii. 270–77; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy; Abbey's English Church and its Bishops, ii. 75; Life and Works of Mrs. Chapone; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]  THOMAS, JOHN (1712–1793), bishop of Rochester, born at Carlisle on 14 Oct. 1712, was the eldest son of John Thomas (d. 1747), vicar of Brampton in Cumberland, by his wife Ann, daughter of Richard Kelsick of Whitehaven, a captain in the merchant service. The younger Thomas was educated at the Carlisle grammar school, whence he proceeded to Oxford, matriculating from Queen's College on 17 Dec. 1730. Soon after his admission he received a clerkship from the provost, Joseph Smith (1670–1756) [q. v.] After completing his terms he became assistant master at an academy in Soho Square, and afterwards private tutor to the younger son of Sir William Clayton, bart., whose sister he afterwards married. On 27 March 1737 Thomas was ordained a deacon, and on 25 Sept. received priest's orders. On 27 Jan. 1737–8 he was instituted rector of Bletchingley in Surrey, a living in the gift of Sir William Clayton. He graduated B.C.L. on 6 March 1741–2, and D.C.L. on 25 May 1742, and on 18 Jan. 1748–9 he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to George II, a post which he also retained under George III. On 23 April 1754 he was made a prebendary of Westminster, and in 1762 he was appointed sub-almoner to the archbishop of York. On 7 Jan. 1766 he was instituted to the vicarage of St. Bride's, Fleet Street, London, and in 1768 he became dean of Westminster and of the order of the Bath. On 13 Nov. 1774 he was consecrated bishop of Rochester. He signalised his episcopacy by repairing the deanery at Rochester and rebuilding the bishop's palace at Bromley, which was in a ruinous state. He died at Bromley on 22 Aug. 1793, and was buried in the vault of the parish church of Bletchingley. He was twice married: first, in 1742, to Anne, sister of Sir William Clayton, bart., and widow of Sir Charles Blackwell, bart. She died on 7 July 1772, and on 12 Jan. 1776 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Baldwin of Munslow in Shropshire, and widow of Sir Joseph Yates [q. v.], judge of the court of king's bench. He left no children. Among other bequests he founded two scholarships at Queen's College for sons of clergymen educated at the grammar school at Carlisle, and during his lifetime he bestowed two similar scholarships on Westminster school.

Thomas's ‘Sermons and Charges’ were collected and edited after his death by his nephew, George Andrew Thomas, in 1796 (London, 8vo, 3rd ed. 1803). Several of his sermons were published separately in his lifetime. His portrait in the robes of the Bath, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, was formerly in the library of Queen's College. An engraving from it by Joseph Baker is prefixed to his ‘Sermons and Charges.’

[Life of Thomas, by G. A. Thomas, prefixed to Sermons and Charges; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict. 1816; Gent. Mag. 1793 ii. 780, 863, 955, 1794 i. 275; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. 1854, ii. 575, iii. 349, 366; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Welch's Alumni Westmon. 1852, p. 33; American Church Review, xix. 528; Manning's History of Surrey, ed. Bray, ii. 315; Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey, 5th ed. p. 477; Chester's London Marriage Licences, col. 1330.]  THOMAS, JOHN (1813–1862), sculptor and architectural draughtsman, born at Chalford in Gloucestershire in 1813, was of