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 was one of the assessors in the trial of the bishop of Lincoln at Lambeth in 1889. In 1890 he succeeded Harold Browne in the see of Winchester. But his health was not equal to the business of the diocese. He died, worn out, on 25 July 1895, the eighteenth anniversary of his consecration.

Without striking characteristics or powerful mind, Thorold had a grasp of detail, and inspired others as much by his own industry as by his words. Strong mannerisms repelled many, but threw into relief his real sincerity and goodness. He read widely, and, although given to tricks of style, he both spoke and wrote well. He was twice married: first, in 1850, to Henrietta, daughter of Thomas Greene, M.P.; and, secondly, in 1865, to Emily, daughter of John Labouchere, by whom he left issue. His works were exclusively devotional or diocesan. They included ‘The Presence of Christ’ (1869), ‘The Gospel of Christ’ (1882), ‘The Yoke of Christ’ (1884), ‘Questions of Faith and Duty’ (1892), and ‘The Tenderness of Christ’ (1894), all in several editions.

[Simpkinson's Life and Work of Thorold; Record, 1895, pp. 721, 725.]

THOROLD, Thomas (1600–1664), jesuit. [See .]

 THOROTON, ROBERT (1623–1678), antiquary, was son of Robert and Anne Thoroton, née Chambers. His ancestors had long held considerable property in Nottinghamshire, at or near Thoroton, Car Colston, Flintham, Screveton, and Bingham. The family owed its name to the hamlet and chapelry of Thoroton, formerly Thurveton or Torverton, in the parish of Orston, some eight miles from Newark. Thoroton described one Roger de Thurverton, a large proprietor in the above districts in Henry III's reign, as his first ‘fixable ancestor.’ His family became allied to that of the Lovetots, lords of Car Colston, through a marriage with the Morins in the reign of Henry VIII.

At Car Colston Thoroton was born and educated. On 30 June 1639, at sixteen, he became sizar of Christ's College, Cambridge (B.A. 1642–3, M.A. 1646). In 1646 he received from the university a license to practise medicine. Thoroton combined the practice of a physician with the occupations of a country gentleman, and though the former met, on his own authority, with ‘competent success,’ he acknowledged himself unable ‘to keep people alive for any time.’ Consequently he decided ‘to practise upon the dead,’ not in a surgical sense, but in ascertaining, by the contemplation of deceased Nottinghamshire worthies, what was to be learned from ‘the shadow of their names’ (Antiquities of Nottinghamshire, pref.)

Although a staunch royalist, Thoroton apparently took little part in the civil war. But he seems to have been among those ‘gentry of the county’ of whom Clarendon says the garrison of Newark, besides its inhabitants, mainly consisted. In writing later of that town Thoroton refers to ‘the second siege, where Prince Rupert took a goodly train of artillery, which I saw, together with their foot arms, when he so fortunately relieved the town, then under the government of Sir Richard, now lord, Byron.’

After the Restoration Thoroton became a justice of the peace for his county and a commissioner of royal aid and subsidy. In his former office, together with his fellow-justice and friend, Pennistone Whalley, he rendered himself notorious by a stringent enforcement of the laws concerning conventicles against the quakers resident in Nottinghamshire. This retaliation for the imprisonments and confiscations suffered during the Commonwealth by Thoroton's relatives and friends called forth some abusive pamphlets.

Thoroton commenced his ‘Antiquities of Nottinghamshire’ in 1667. He first worked on some transcript notes from ‘Domesday Book’ which were made by his father-in-law Gilbert Boun, serjeant-at-law, recorder of Newark, sometime M.P. for Nottingham, and were made over to Thoroton by Gilbert Boun's son-in-law, Gervase Pigot of Thrumpton. Thoroton did not conduct all his researches personally, but employed paid assistants at great expense to himself. His industry was mainly exercised among family archives, registers, estate conveyances, monumental heraldry, and epitaphs; and, with the characteristic bent of the antiquary, he was little concerned with the events of his own period, even with the great civil war. The magnificent result of his labours appeared in the folio volume of ‘Antiquities’ printed in London in 1677, and illustrated with engravings by Hollar after Richard Hall. Thoroton dedicated his book to Gilbert Sheldon [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury, and secondarily to (Sir) William Dugdale [q. v.], both personal friends. Dugdale received no presentation copy, for he wrote to Sir D. Fleming, ‘Dr. Thoroton's book costs me 16s. to 18s. I do esteem the book well worth your buying, though had he gone to the fountain of records it might have been better done’ (1 Sept. 1677, MSS. of S. H. Fleming, Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. vii).

Thoroton erected in 1664 a memorial slab in the south aisle of Car Colston church recording the names of several of his ancestors;