Thomas Byrth | |
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Born | Devonport, Plymouth, Devon, England | 11 September 1793
Died | 28 October 1849 Wallasey, Cheshire, England | (aged 56)
Nationality | British |
Occupation | Divine |
Known for | Unitarian controversy |
Thomas Byrth (11 September 1793 – 28 October 1849) was an English scholar and priest.
Life
Thomas Byrth was born in Plymouth Dock (now Devonport), on 11 September 1793, son of John Byrth, of Irish descent, and Mary Hobling, of an old Cornish family. He received his early education in Plymouth Dock and at Launceston under Richard Cope, LL.D. From 1809 to 1814 he was an apprentice with the Cookworthys, chemists and druggists in the west of England. During that period he and other young men started the Plymouth Magazine, which expired with its sixth number on 19 November 1814. After this he passed some years as a schoolmaster, but in 1818 he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford.[1]
Byrth had been in sympathy with the Quakers, but on 21 October 1819 was baptised into the Church of England at St. Andrew's Church, Plymouth. He took his degrees of B.A. and M.A. in the spring of 1826, and was ordained to the curacy of Diptford, near Totnes, in April 1823, remaining there until 1825. After that he was a tutor at Oxford until 1827, when he became the incumbent of St. James, Latchford, near Warrington, Cheshire. On 19 June 1827 he married Mary Kingdom. They had seven children. In 1834 he was appointed to the rectory of Wallasey, Cheshire. He became B.D. on 17 Oct. 1839 and took his degree of D.D. two days later. He died in Wallasey on 28 October 1849. The west window in the Wallasey Church is filled with stained glass in memory of Byrth.[1]
Work
Byrth was an evangelical in religion and a whig in politics. His scholarship was thorough, and he was possessed of poetic taste and antiquarian enthusiasm. He published many sermons and addresses, and was engaged in controversy with the Rev. J. H. Thom on the unitarian interpretation of the New Testament. In 1848 he edited the sermons of the Rev. Thomas Tattershall, D.D., incumbent of St. Augustine's Church, Liverpool, and prefixed to them a memoir of the author. His own ‘Remains,’ with a memoir by the Rev. G. R. Moncreiff, were published in 1851, and a sermon on his death, preached by the Rev. John Tobin in St. John's Church, Liscard, on 4 Nov. 1849, was published in the same year.[1]
Notes
- ^ a b c Courtney 1886, p. 164.