Thomas Ford (martyr)

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Blessed Thomas Ford (d. 28 May, 1582), a Devonshire native, was a Catholic martyr executed during the reign of Elizabeth I.

He received a MA at Trinity College, Oxford, on July 24, 1567, and became a fellow (one source says president)there. In 1670, he left for the English College, Douai, and was one of its first three students to be ordained, receiving his orders in March of 1573 in Brussels.

Soon after receiving his BD in Douai, on May 2, 1576, he left for England. There he became the chaplain of Edward Yate and the Bridgettine nuns who were staying with him in Lyford, Berkshire. On July 17, 1581, he was arrested with St. Edmund Campion. On July 22nd of that same year, he was put in the Tower, where he was tortured.

He was brought to court along with Bl. John Shert on Novermber 16th with a faked charge of conspiracy. It said he had conspired in places he had never been (Rome and Rheims), on days he had been in England. Both were condemned on November 21st and executed with Bl. Robert Johnson in May of 1582. All three were beatified in 1889.

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.