Thomas Crofts
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The Reverend and Learned Thomas Crofts FRS FSA (1722 - 8 November 1781) was a British bibliophile and traveller Thomas was born in Monmouth, Wales and was the son of John Crofts. At the age of 17 he matriculated at Wadham College Oxford obtaining his BA in February 1743 and his MA in 1746.
[edit] Later life
In the following 20 years Thomas alternated between the closeted life of a Fellow of an Oxford College and at least three extended tours of Europe[1]. On one such visit (1758-1759) he accompanied a young Oxford Graduate, Thomas Knight, a cousin and future benefactor of the family of Jane Austen the novelist,on The Grand Tour [2] On such visits Thomas brought back many rare books and coins.
In 1763 Thomas was instituted as Rector of Donyat, Somerset. He then travelled to Aleppo, Syria where he was chaplain to the English Factory in the late 1760s and there continued researching and collecting antiquities [3]
In 1770 Thomas returned to England as Chaplain to the 4th Duke of Leeds and lived in Bury St in the fashionable district of St James. He became a member of the literati frequenting the so called 'Literary Coffee House' at the shop of the bookseller and publisher Thomas Payne. His friends and colleagues included Thomas Tyrwhitt, George Steevens, John Hoole and the anatomist and numismatist William Hunter. His library was now very extensive and books borrowed from it helped Tyrwhitt with 'The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer' 1775 and also Hoole with his translation of 'Orlando Furioso'1783. He also came to the attention of the Dilettante Society as Lord Seaforth, the Marquis of Carmarthen( Francis Osborne son of the Duke of Leeds) and the naturalist Joseph Banks nominated him for membership of The Royal Society in March 1776. It was also in 1776 that Thomas was involved with the publication of the spoof poems of Thomas Rowley a medieval monk,which had in fact been written by Thomas Chatterton ( 1752-1770)[4]. Contemporary correspondence shows that Thomas recommended Tyrwhitt as an an expert to George Catcott, who possessed the 'manuscripts', and he also suggested Payne as a publisher. These poems were subsequently edited by Tyrrwhitt and published as genuine in 1777 only for Tyrwhitt to recant and expose them as forgeries.
During the late 1770s Thomas's health began to deteriorate. He sold his large collection of coins to Hunter in Jan 1781 and died at the home of the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam at Milton Park, Northants on 8th Nov that year. A tribute in the 'Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer'[5] described him as ' distinguished for his general attainments as well as antient erudition...gleaned...not of reading only but of intelligent travels'. His extensive library was sold in over 8000 lots over 43 days in 1783. Copies of the Catalogue of the Sale ' Bibliotheca Croftsiana ...' are still in existence and his books now reside in some of the important collections of the world.
[edit] References
- ^ G Macdonald 'Catalogue of Greek Coins in the Hunterian Collection' 1899 Preface
- ^ Obituary of Knight in The Gentlemans Magazine 1794 p1058
- ^ R Chandler'Travels in Asia Minor' 1775 p143
- ^ LF Powell'Thomas Chatterton and the Rowley Poems'. Review of English Studies Vol 7 July 1931
- ^ J Nichols ' Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century comprising biographical memoirs of William Bowyer' 1812 p 481
