Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/15

 designs some pleasing fancy subjects as well as a few portraits, including those of George III and his daughter, the Princess of Würtemberg. He was engaged as drawing-master to the princesses, and spent much time at court, receiving the appointment of historical engraver to the queen. He executed a set of illustrations to Sir J. Bland Burgess's poem, ‘The Birth and Triumph of Love,’ from designs by Princess Elizabeth, and two sets of plates from papers cut by Lady Templetown. For some years Tomkins carried on business as a print publisher in Bond Street, and in 1797 he produced a sumptuous edition of Thomson's ‘Seasons,’ with plates by himself and Bartolozzi from designs by William Hamilton. He also projected two magnificent works, ‘The British Gallery of Art,’ with text by Tresham and Ottley, and ‘The Gallery of the Marquess of Stafford,’ with text by Ottley, which both appeared in 1818. These involved him in heavy financial loss, and he was compelled to obtain an act of parliament authorising him to dispose by lottery of the collection of watercolour drawings from which his engravings were executed, together with the unsold impressions of the plates, the whole valued at 150,000l. Many of the sets of prints were exquisitely printed in colours. Tomkins's latest work was a series of three plates from copies by Harriet Whitshed of paintings discovered at Hampton Court, 1834–40. He died at his house in Osnaburgh Street, London, on 22 April 1840. By his wife, Lucy Jones, he had a large family, including a daughter Emma, who practised as an artist and married Samuel Smith the engraver. The frontispiece to his edition of Thomson's ‘Seasons’ contains a medallion portrait of himself with others of Bartolozzi and Hamilton.

(fl. 1779), elder brother of Peltro William, was born in London on 7 July 1757. In 1776 he gained a premium from the Society of Arts for a view of Milbank, and subsequently practised as a topographical and antiquarian draughtsman and aquatint engraver. In 1791 he published ‘Eight Views of Reading Abbey,’ with text by himself (reissued in 1805 with twenty-three additional views of churches originally connected with the abbey); in 1796 ‘Tour in the Isle of Wight,’ with eighty plates; and in 1805 a set of illustrations to Petrarch's sonnets, which he dedicated to the Duchess of Devonshire. In conjunction with Francis Jukes he engraved Cleveley's two pictures of the advance and defeat of a floating battery at Gibraltar, 1782; he also drew and engraved the plates to the ‘British Volunteer,’ 1799, and a plan view of the sham fight of the St. George's Volunteers in Hyde Park in that year. Tomkins was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy from 1773 to 1779. Many of his watercolour drawings are in the Crowle copy of Pennant's ‘London’ in the print-room of the British Museum.

[Edwards's Anecdotes of Painting; Sandby's Hist. of the Royal Academy; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Nagler's Künstler-Lexikon; Dodd's manuscript Hist. of Engravers in Brit. Museum (Addit. MS. 33406); private information.]  TOMKINS, THOMAS (fl. 1614), dramatist. [See .]

TOMKINS, THOMAS (d. 1656), musician, was of a family which produced more musicians than any other family in England. His father, also named Thomas Tomkins, was in holy orders and precentor of Gloucester Cathedral; he was descended from the Tomkinses of Lostwithiel. One of the madrigals in Morley's ‘Triumphs of Oriana’ (1601) was composed by the Rev. Thomas Tomkins; and he wrote an account of the bishops of Gloucester Cathedral. Of his six sons—Peregrine, Nathanael, Nicholas, Thomas, John (see below), and Giles (see below)—the most distinguished was Thomas, who states in the dedication of his madrigals that he was born in Pembrokeshire. He studied under William Byrd [q. v.] at the chapel royal in London, and graduated Mus. Bac. Oxon. on 11 July 1607.

Thomas's first known appointment as organist was to Worcester Cathedral, where an organ was built in 1613 at unusual expense (, History of Worcester, App.) In Myriell's ‘Tristitiæ Remedium,’ dated 1616, and now in the British Museum as Additional MSS. 29372–7, six of his compositions are copied. On 2 Aug. 1621 he was sworn in as one of the organists of the chapel royal, in succession to Edmund Hooper. This post did not necessitate his resigning the appointment at Worcester, as arrangements had been made in 1615 for the organists and singers of the chapel royal to attend in rotation. In 1625 forty shillings was paid him ‘for composing of many songes against the coronation of Kinge Charles.’ On the death of Alfonso Ferrabosco [q. v.], the bishop of Bath and Wells directed that Tomkins should be appointed ‘composer for the voices and wind instruments;’ but the order was revoked by the king, who had promised the place to Ferrabosco's son (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 15 March 1628; Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. i. 341). What became of Tomkins after the suppression of the chapel