Thomas Combe

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Thomas Combe (1796–1872) was a Superintendent of the Oxford University Press in Oxford, England, and a patron of the arts. He was also a founder and benefactor of St Barnabas Church, near the Press in Jericho and close to Oxford Canal.

Combe was the son of a bookseller in Leicestershire. He joined the University Press (or Clarendon Press) in 1837 at its then new (1830) building in Walton Street. Eventually he rose to manage it. He and his wife Martha were keen patrons of the arts and particularly appreciated Pre-Raphaelite art. They were also devotees of the Oxford Movement (or Tractarian movement).

In 1849 at Oxford, he met the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais, who painted portraits of Combe's family [1].

Combe is buried in St Sepulchre's Cemetery, off Walton Street, near the University Press.

[edit] References

• History of St Barnabas Church

[edit] External links

• Entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography