Showing 376 results

Francis Turner was the oldest son of Thomas Turner, Dean of Canterbury. He was born 23 August 1637. From Winchester College, where he was elected scholar in 1651, Francis proceeded to New College, Oxford, where he was admitted probationer fellow on 7 November 1655, and graduated B. A. on 14 April 1659 and M. A. on 14 January 1663.
Turner’s preferments were mainly due to the favour of the Duke of York, to whom he was chaplain. In February 1664/5 he was incorporated at Cambridge, and on 8 May 1666 he was admitted fellow commoner in St. John's College, Cambridge, to which the patronage of Peter Gunning, the Regius Professor of Divinity, attracted him.
On 11 April 1670 he succeeded Gunning as Master of St. John's, Cambridge; he was vice-chancellor in 1678, and resigned his mastership, "because of a faction," at Christmas 1679.

Born in 1430 to Owen Tudor and the dowager queen Catherine of Valois at Much Hadham Palace in Hertfordshire, Edmund Tudor was the half-brother of Henry VI of England and father to Henry VII. After the death of his mother in 1437, Edmund and his brother Jasper were raised in the care of Katherine de la Pole, the eldest daughter of the 2nd Earl of Suffolk, Michael de la Pole. He became a prominent member of the royal court of Henry VI and was ennobled as Earl of Richmond in 1449.

In 1453, Edmund was given the wardship of the then nine-year old Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby. The two were married two years later at Bletsoe Castle on 1st November 1455 and the marriage was subsequently consummated. However, Edmund died before the birth of their son, Henry.

As half-brother to the King, Edmund was inevitably implicated in the bloody power struggles of the Wars of the Roses. In late 1455, he was sent to Wales to enforce the authority of the King and remained there until August 1456 in order to suppress a rebellion led by Gruffydd ap Nicholas. During this time, however, Henry VI was incarcerated by Richard, Duke of York, who resumed the office of Protector and sent troops under William Herbert in August 1456 to seize South Wales. On reaching Carmarthen Castle, Herbert’s forces captured Edmund and imprisoned him in the Castle. He died in captivity in November 1456.

Anthony Tuckney was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and a fellow there from 1619 to 1630. He was town preacher at Boston, Lincolnshire from 1629 and in 1633, succeeded John Cotton as vicar of St Botolph's Church, Boston. From 1645 to 1653 he was Master of Emmanuel and then from 1653 to 1661 Master of St John's College, Cambridge. In 1655, he became the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge – then the seat of Puritan thought. After the English Restoration in 1660, he was removed from his positions and retired from professional life.
For more information on Tuckney see the Oxford DNB

Master of the Free School at Hereford.

Pietro Torrigiano was a fifteenth-century Florentine sculptor who played an important role in introducing Renaissance art to England. In the account of his life given by Giorgio Vasari, Torrigiano was born in Florence in 1472 and studied art in Florence as a young man under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici. He came to England c.1509 and in 1511, was commissioned to create the monument for the tomb of Lady Margaret Beaufort. He went on to receive appointments for a number of other royal works, including a commission to create a terracotta bust of King Henry VII and the monument and effigies of Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth of York. The monument and effigies may still be seen in the Henry VII Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey and were completed c.1517. Torrigiano spent the later years of his life in Spain, especially at Seville. He died in 1528.

The Tithe Commission was established in 1836 under the Tithe Commutation Act. It was set up in order to establish exactly what tithes were due in each area of the country and to whom, and to formalise the commutation of tithes from payment in kind to cash payments.
Tithes were payments made from early times for the support of the parish church and its clergy. Originally these payments were made in kind (crops, wool, milk, young stock, etc.) and usually represented a tenth (tithe) of the yearly production of cultivation or stock rearing. The tithes were often stored in a tithe barn attached to the parish.
The ownership of the tithe was a property right that could be bought and sold, leased or mortgaged, or assigned to others. This resulted in many of the rectorial tithes passing into lay hands - particularly after the dissolution of the monasteries. These tithes then became the personal property of the new owners.
From early times money payments had begun to be substituted for payments in kind. Fixed sums (moduses) were substituted for some categories of production, particularly for livestock and perishable produce; while adjustable payments known as compositions, which were sometimes assessed annually, were increasingly being substituted in local arrangements in latter years.
Tithe commutation was the process by which the payment in kind was substituted for a cash payment. By the time of the Tithe Commutation Act there was considerable discontent over payment of tithes. The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 was designed to ensure that commutation was achieved smoothly and quickly throughout the country. It required tithes in kind to be converted to more convenient monetary payments called tithe rentcharge. There had been an increasing demand for the Commutation of Tithe during the 18th century (some reformers campaigned for the abolition of tithe) and in 1836 the government of the day successfully steered the Tithe Commutation Bill through Parliament. The Act received the Royal Assent on 13 August 1836.
The Act substituted a variable monetary payment (referred to as the "corn rent") for any existing tithe in kind. This payment was originally calculated on the basis of seven-year average prices of wheat, barley, and oats, with each type of grain contributing an equal part to the total. Prices were determined nationally. Some land was free of tithe obligation, due to barrenness, custom, or prior arrangement.
The 1836 Act set up the Tithe Commission which was established to identify all affected properties and to resolve boundary issues arising from their survey. It was headed by three commissioners sitting in London who were William Balmire (chairman), Thomas Wentworth Buller and the Rev. Richard Jones. Valuation of current tithes could be negotiated by the parties; in the absence of an agreement, they were determined by the commission.
The first tasks of the Commissioners were to find out where commutation had already taken place, and also to establish the boundaries of every unit in which tithes were paid separately. This unit was mapped and named as a tithe district to distinguish it from a parish or township. Enquiries were directed to every parish or township listed in the census returns. The results of these enquiries are found in the Tithe Files at The National Archives. Tithe districts are usually parishes, but a minority are townships, and some are chapelries, hamlets, or extra-parochial places, many of which enjoyed separate status solely for tithe commutation purposes. Areas in which tithes had already been commuted were not mapped, so that coverage varied widely from county to county. The maps indicated parcels of land and buildings, assigning each a number. The initial intent was to produce maps of the highest possible quality, but the expense (incurred by the landowners) led to the provision that the accuracy of the maps would be testified by the seal of the commissioners, and only maps of suitable quality would be so sealed. In the end, about one-sixth of the maps had seals.
There were two distinct stages to the commutation process, first, the fixing of a global assessment for the tithe district and second, the apportioning of the tithe rent-charge on the individual properties.
The apportionment was recorded on a map and in a written schedule. These maps and schedules together constitute what is usually termed by historians ‘the parish tithe survey’. The essential purpose of a survey was to provide an accurate measurement of the acreage of each parcel of land, or tithe area, and record its observed state of cultivation. Associated with each map was an apportionment schedule, which listed each map item by number. For each entry the owner, tenant, area, name or description, state of cultivation, rent charge payable, and the tithe owner was listed. A preamble gave the name of the tithe owner, the circumstances under which tithes were owed, and whether the apportionment was agreed by the parties or was being imposed by the Crown. Assistant tithe commissioners travelled to all the non-commuted tithe districts to hold meetings with parishioners about valuations, and to settle the terms of the commutation of their tithes.
The surveying was carried out expeditiously, with the majority of the work performed by 1841, and largely completed by 1851. In some cases, amendments had to be filed when properties were divided or other circumstances intervened. The work was also complicated by numerous inconsistencies in how tithes were assessed. For example, timber might or might not include standing trees, branches, acorns, mast, and even charcoal. Variations as to the circumstances of tithe-paying were also considerable. The terms of the commutation were formalized in a document called a tithe agreement, if all parties concurred, or a tithe award, if the assistant commissioner had to arbitrate in a dispute. The agreement or award formed the basis of the tithe apportionment, which was the legal document setting out landowners’ individual liabilities. Each apportionment was accompanied by a map; both were signed by the Tithe Commissioners. Tithe rentcharge then became payable.
The Tithe Act provided for the making of an original and 2 copies of every confirmed instrument of apportionment; all were sealed and signed by the Commissioners. The originals were retained in the custody of the Commissioners and are now in a complete set in The National Archives. The other two copies were deposited one with the Diocesan Registrar and the other with the incumbent and churchwardens of the parish. Some of these copies remain in the parish churches but many are now deposited in the local record offices. Most record offices also have photocopies of the maps and schedules for their district.
This commutation process reduced problems by effectively folding tithes in with rents. Rent charges in lieu of abolished English tithes paid by landowners were converted by a public outlay of money under the Tithe Act 1936 into annuities paid to the state through the Tithe Redemption Commission. The Commission ceased to exist when such payments were transferred in 1960 to the Board of Inland Revenue, and those remaining were terminated by the Finance Act in 1977.

William Thomas (Bill) Thurbon began working in the College in 1920 as a clerk under Ned Lockhart, chief clerk and college butler. Thurbon became the bursary assistant in 1931 and bursar’s clerk from 1955 to 1970. For another twenty years Bill assisted in organizing the records of the College. Bill Thurbon began working in the College in 1920 and was Bursar’s Clerk from 1955 to 1970. For another twenty years Bill assisted in organizing the records of the College. He was married to Alice Zillah Thurbon.

Thomas Thomson was Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge, 1510-1517, and Vice-Chancellor, 1510-1512. Other notable appointments include Vicar of Gateley, Norfolk, 1520- 1530, and Vicar of Enfield, Middlesex, from 1505 to his death c.1540. An early benefactor to St. John’s College, Thomson helped to support the income of two fellowships and contributed, through a donation of rents in Cambridge, to the construction of a chantry on the south side of the College Chapel in 1524.

Thomas Thirlby (or Thirleby; c. 1506–1570), was the first and only bishop of Westminster (1540–50), and afterwards successively bishop of Norwich (1550–54) and bishop of Ely (1554–59). While he acquiesced in the Henrician schism, with its rejection in principle of the Roman papacy, he remained otherwise loyal to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church during the English Reformation.
For more information see: https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/thomas-thirlby

Founded by John Walter I 1785, The Times is Britain’s oldest national daily newspaper. It was first published under the title Daily Universal Register, before becoming the first newspaper in the world to use the Times name in 1788.

The Times introduced digital subscriptions to the paper in 2010. The Times is the biggest selling quality print newspaper in the UK, and was named Britain’s most trusted newspaper by Oxford University.