Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/327

  bridge, and in 1733 at Rochester a collection of statutes of Richard II, Henry V, Elizabeth, and Anne, concerning the same bridge. Several of his letters are preserved in the Sloane collection. He died on 30 Nov. 1750 at Rochester. He was buried in the church of Stockbury, Kent, a parish in which he had purchased a house and land called Nettlested, once owned by the family of [q. v.], the antiquary. Thorpe married Elizabeth, daughter of John Woodhouse of Shobdon, Herefordshire, and had one son, [q. v.], who is separately noticed.

A portrait of Thorpe, engraved by J. Bayly from a painting by Wollaston, is prefixed to ‘Registrum Roffense.’



THORPE, JOHN (1715–1792), antiquary, born in 1715, was the only son of (1682–1750) [q. v.], antiquary, of Rochester, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Woodhouse of Shobdon, Herefordshire. He was educated at Ludsdown, Kent, under Samuel Thornton, and matriculated from University College, Oxford, on 22 March 1731–2, graduating B.A. in 1735 and M.A. in 1738. After some study of medicine he abandoned it, and, like his father, devoted himself to antiquarian research. In 1755 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. In 1769 he published, with the assistance of John Baynard of the navy office, his father's ‘Registrum Roffense’ (London, fol.). In 1788 Thorpe supplemented the ‘Registrum’ by publishing the ‘Custumale Roffense’ (London, fol.) from the original manuscript, with the addition of other memorials of the cathedral church. After residing for many years at High-street House, Bexley, Kent, he removed in 1789, after the death of his first wife, to Richmond Green, Surrey, and then to Chippenham in Wiltshire, where he died on 2 Aug. 1792; he was buried in the churchyard of the neighbouring village of Hardenhuish.

Thorpe was twice married. His first wife, Catharina, whom he married in 1746, was the daughter of Laurence Holker, physician, of Gravesend. She died on 10 Jan. 1789, leaving two daughters, Catharine and Ethelinda. On 6 July 1790 he married Mrs. Holland, his housekeeper and ‘the widow of an old collegiate acquaintance.’

Besides the works mentioned, Thorpe contributed ‘Illustrations of several Antiquities in Kent which have hitherto remained undescribed’ to the first volume of the ‘Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica.’ A letter from him to [q. v.] maintaining, in opposition to [q. v.], that the cherry is indigenous to England, was published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ of the Royal Society (1771, p. 152). He frequently made contributions on antiquarian subjects to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine.’ His portrait, painted by W. Hardy and engraved by [q. v.], is prefixed to ‘Custumale Roffense.’



THORPE, ROBERT (fl. 1290), judge, appears to have been head of an ancient family residing at Thorpe Thewles, near Stockton, Durham, and to have descended from Geoffrey de Torp, who in 1166 held that estate of the bishopric of Durham as half a knight's fee (Liber Niger, i. 308). When Edward I turned out the judges in 1289, he appointed Thorpe a justice of the common pleas, and fines were levied before him in 1290. He perhaps died soon afterwards, and certainly before 1306, for in that year his widow, Aveline, was claiming a third of the manor of Thorpe Thewles.



THORPE or THORP, ROBERT  (d. 1372), chancellor, a native of Thorpe-next-Norwich, was educated at Cambridge, and appears as an advocate in 1340 and as king's serjeant in 1345. He was, Coke says, ‘of singular judgment in the laws of the realm.’ He was appointed the second master of Pembroke Hall or College, Cambridge, in 1347, and held that office until 1364. In 1355 and 1359 he sat as a judge to try felonies in Oxfordshire and other counties, and on 27 June 1356 was appointed chief justice of the common pleas. A grant of 40l. a year was made to him by the king in 1365 to enable him to support the honour of knighthood. When William of Wykeham resigned the great seal on 24 March 1371, the king appointed Thorpe chancellor, delivering him the seal on the 26th. He died somewhat suddenly, for he appears to have transacted business on 25 June 1372, and on the 29th, being in the house of Robert Wyville, bishop of Salisbury, in Fleet Street, was so sick that he had the great seal enclosed in a bag, sealed with his own seal and the seals of Sir John Knyvet, the chief justice, and others, and died there that night. It is evident from his