John Nichols Thom - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

John Nichols Thom, or Mad Tom, (1799 - 31 May 1838) was a Cornishman

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, a self-declared messiah

Messiah

A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

who, in the 19th century led the last battle to be fought on English soil

Battle of Bossenden Wood

The Battle of Bossenden Wood, also known as the Battle of Bosenden Wood, took place on 31 May 1838 near Hernhill in Kent; it has been called the last battle on English soil....

Early life

John Nichols Thom was born a son of a publican

Publican

In antiquity, publicans were public contractors, in which role they often supplied the Roman legions and military, managed the collection of port duties, and oversaw public building projects...

, in 1799 at St Columb Major

St Columb Major

St Columb Major is a civil parish and town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Often referred to locally as St Columb, it is situated approximately seven miles southwest of Wadebridge and six miles east of Newquay...

in Cornwall

Cornwall

. When he was a child, his mother died in an insane asylum. He worked for five years with two wine merchants in Truro

Truro

Truro is a city and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The city is the centre for administration, leisure and retail in Cornwall, with a population recorded in the 2001 census of 17,431. Truro urban statistical area, which includes parts of surrounding parishes, has a 2001 census...

until the business collapsed. Thom proceeded to become a wine merchant himself. In 1828, he was a maltster, when fire destroyed his malthouse

Malthouse

A malt house, or maltings, is a building where cereal grain is converted into malt by soaking it in water, allowing it to sprout and then drying it to stop further growth. The malt is used in brewing beer, whisky and in certain foods. The traditional malt house was largely phased out during the...

and he collected £1000 for insurance to begin anew.

At the Quarter Sessions

Quarter Sessions

The Courts of Quarter Sessions or Quarter Sessions were local courts traditionally held at four set times each year in the United Kingdom and other countries in the former British Empire...

held at Bodmin

Bodmin

Bodmin is a civil parish and major town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated in the centre of the county southwest of Bodmin Moor.The extent of the civil parish corresponds fairly closely to that of the town so is mostly urban in character...

on 15 July 1828, Thom applied successfully for the return of £304 paid in excise duty on malt

Malt

Malt is germinated cereal grains that have been dried in a process known as "malting". The grains are made to germinate by soaking in water, and are then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air...

destroyed in the fire at his malthouse on 17 June 1828.

After some years, he disappeared. Having departed Truro in 1832, he became infatuated with Lady Hester Stanhope

Lady Hester Stanhope

Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope , the eldest child of Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope by his first wife Lady Hester Pitt, is remembered by history as an intrepid traveller in an age when women were discouraged from being adventurous.-Early life and travels:Lady Hester was born and grew up at her...

. Thom claimed to have followed her to Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

only to be utterly rejected. The claims that he travelled to the Near East

Near East

The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...

are probably false as he was known to have been in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

and also London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

at the time.

Canterbury

In September 1832, Thom arrived in Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

, announcing himself as Count Moses R. Rothschild

Rothschild

Rothschild is a common German surname. It is a habitational name from a house distinguished with a red shield , the earliest recorded example dating from the 13th century...

, of the illustrious Jewish banking family. He dressed as a Turk, or in other fantastic costumes, and spent money liberally, quickly becoming well known in the city. After a few weeks he metamorphosed into Sir William Percy Honeywood Courtenay, Knight of Malta.

Although seen by many as a charlatan

Charlatan

A charlatan is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretense or deception....

, Thom stood for Canterbury

Canterbury (UK Parliament constituency)

Canterbury is a county constituency which has been represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 1918. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

at the parliamentary election of 1832, using the name Sir William Courtenay of Powderham

Powderham Castle

Powderham Castle is located south of Exeter, Devon, England. The Powderham Estate, in which it is set, runs down to the western shores of the estuary of the River Exe between the villages of Kenton and Starcross....

and claiming to be the heir to the Earl of Devon

Earl of Devon

The title of Earl of Devon was created several times in the Peerage of England, and was possessed first by the de Redvers family, and later by the Courtenays...

. Thom's populist politics saw him poll a creditable 375 votes, which was almost half the 834 and 802 polled by the other two candidates, Richard Watson

Richard Watson (politician)

The Honourable Richard Watson was a British Whig politician who served as a Member of Parliament for Canterbury from 1830 to 1835 and briefly in 1852 for Peterborough....

and Viscount Fordwich

George Cowper, 6th Earl Cowper

George Augustus Frederick Cowper, 6th Earl Cowper , styled Viscount Fordwich until 1837, was a British Whig politician...

.

Thom's popularity was largely confined to the city of Canterbury. He was then living at the Rose Hotel, and campaigned in a crimson velvet suit with gold lacings and carried a sword. He later began to call himself the King of Jerusalem and Knight of Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

. He began to tour Kent and spoke against various tax law

Tax law

Tax law is the codified system of laws that describes government levies on economic transactions, commonly called taxes.-Major issues:Primary taxation issues facing the governments world over include;* taxes on income and wealth...

s.

In 1833 Thom begun to publish a theological journal The Lion in which he stated that all the churches just wanted to hoard gold. In July 1833 he also claimed to have seen that a group of alcohol smugglers had not thrown their cargo overboard, which they certainly had done. On 24 July he was sentenced to penal transportation

Penal transportation

Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...

for perjury

Perjury

Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...

and was locked up in the Barming Heath

Barming

Barming is a civil parish in the Maidstone District of Kent, England. It lies to the west of Maidstone, the county town, and had a population of 2234 persons . The eastern end of the parish is part of the built-up area of Maidstone, although the remainder is much more rural...

asylum in Kent.

His father petitioned for his release and, with help of Sir Hussey Vivian, wrote letters to Lord John Russell

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC , known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century....

(the then Home secretary). The petition was successful and a pardon was granted.

Messianism

Upon release, Thom again assumed the identity of Sir William Courtenay, declared himself "saviour of the world" and became a wandering preacher. He again wore his colourful costumes, including an embroidered

Embroidery

Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....

Maltese Cross

Maltese cross

The Maltese cross, also known as the Amalfi cross, is identified as the symbol of an order of Christian warriors known as the Knights Hospitaller or Knights of Malta and through them came to be identified with the Mediterranean island of Malta and is one of the National symbols of Malta...

and a sword which he claimed to be Excalibur

Excalibur

Excalibur is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain. Sometimes Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are said to be the same weapon, but in most versions they are considered separate. The sword was...

. Later witnesses also stated that he had nail marks in his hands. He supported the cause of farm workers who resisted the effects of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834

Poor Law Amendment Act 1834

The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, sometimes abbreviated to PLAA, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Lord Melbourne that reformed the country's poverty relief system . It was an Amendment Act that completely replaced earlier legislation based on the...

, which ordered all able-bodied men to workhouse

Workhouse

In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...

s if they could not find work.

Thom gathered a following of more than one hundred people and convinced them that their faith would make them invulnerable to steel and bullets. He also claimed that he could slay 10,000 men by hitting his left hand with his right and that if he were shot dead, he would come back to life three days later.

When Thom and his followers paraded in and around the countryside near Boughton, a farmer named Curling asked magistrates in Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

to arrest his truant workers who had left with Thom. On 31 May 1838, magistrates sent three constables to arrest Thom at the house of a farmer named Culver. Thom shot constable Nicholas Mears dead, mutilated the body with his blade and threw it into a ditch. Mears was later believed to have been a follower of Thom's and to have been shot for his betrayal. Thom then pacified his followers with a sacrament of eucharist

Eucharist

The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...

, promised them the estates of the landed gentry

Landed gentry

Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....

, and led a group of thirty or forty men to Bossenden Wood

Battle of Bossenden Wood

The Battle of Bossenden Wood, also known as the Battle of Bosenden Wood, took place on 31 May 1838 near Hernhill in Kent; it has been called the last battle on English soil....

Battle and Death

The authorities had had enough. The same day they sent 100 soldiers of the 45th Foot regiment

45th (Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot

The 45th Regiment of Foot was a British Army line infantry regiment. During the Childers Reforms it was united with the 95th Regiment of Foot to form the The Sherwood Foresters ....

to the village of Dunkirk

Dunkirk, Kent

Dunkirk is a village and civil parish between Faversham and Canterbury in southeast England.-Toponymy:The origin of the village's name is still not very clear, but it is understood to come from a house called "Dunkirk", lived in by a Fleming from Dunkerque on the border between France and...

to arrest Thom and his followers. Troops surrounded the woods and the commanding officer, Armstrong, demanded they surrender. Thom would have none of it and shot and killed Lieutenant Henry Boswell Bennett

Henry Boswell Bennett

Lieutenant Henry Boswell Bennett of the 45th Regiment of Foot , on 31 May 1838 he became the first officer to die in the service of Queen Victoria when he was shot by John Nichols Thom in Kent....

, who was leading his troops. Soldiers of the 45th opened fire and killed Thom and nine of his followers. After a brief struggle, Thom's remaining followers dispersed, but the soldiers captured twenty-five of them. Local constable George Catt, who had accompanied the troops, also died in the clash.

Thom's body was taken to Hernhill

Hernhill

Hernhill is a village and civil parish between Faversham and Canterbury in southeast England. The parish includes the hamlets of Crockham, Dargate, The Fostall, Lamberhurst, Oakwell, Staple Street, Thread, Waterham and Wey Street.-Churches:...

. Before the inquest

Inquest

Inquests in England and Wales are held into sudden and unexplained deaths and also into the circumstances of discovery of a certain class of valuable artefacts known as "treasure trove"...

, Thom's remaining disciples tore his bloody shirt on his body and divided it for relic

Relic

In religion, a relic is a part of the body of a saint or a venerated person, or else another type of ancient religious object, carefully preserved for purposes of veneration or as a tangible memorial...

s. The coroner, having heard the rumour that Thom would rise on the third day, ordered his heart removed and pickled in a jar. The pickled heart survived until the 1950s. On 5 June, when Thom and his dead followers were buried in an unmarked grave in Hernhill

Hernhill

churchyard, watchmen guarded the grave for some time in case of fervent grave robbers.

Aftermath and legacy

Trial against nineteen of the surviving followers began 9 August 1838 in Maidstone

Maidstone

Maidstone is the county town of Kent, England, south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town linking Maidstone to Rochester and the Thames Estuary. Historically, the river was a source and route for much of the town's trade. Maidstone was the centre of the agricultural...

and ended on 17 August. Some of them were sentenced to death but all the sentences were commuted to penal transportation

Penal transportation

or hard labour.

As a result of the battle at Bossenden, the Government realised there was a serious problem in Dunkirk. They dealt leniently with the survivors of Courtenay’s army. Most were given parole. Only two were sentenced to transportation, and one of them went on to make a fortune in the Australian goldfields.

Frightened of further unrest in the area, the Government decided a Christian mission might help, made Dunkirk a proper parish (at last), and built both a church and a school. The church, at the top of Boughton Hill, was declared redundant some years ago and is likely to be converted into a house. The school has now also closed.

Although technically a rebel and fanatic, Thom's 19th Century reputation was darker. In a celebrated cartoon by Richard Doyle

Richard Doyle

Richard Doyle may refer to:*Richard Doyle , American actor*Richard Doyle , British thriller writer*Richard Doyle , the first All-American in Michigan Wolverines men's basketball history...

(the uncle of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...

) of Madame Tussaud's museum, which named the room of criminal items "the chamber of horrors", in the forefront were a set of statues of various murderers or attempted murderers, including James Greenacre

James Greenacre

James Greenacre was married to Hannah Brown. They lived in buildings on Edgware Road, London, not far from Hyde Park. One day in 1837, the Police found a woman's head in Regent's Canal. They identified Hannah's body and suspected her husband as a murderer because he had married her for her money...

, Daniel Good, James Blomfield Rush, and Edward Oxford

Edward Oxford

Edward Oxford was tried for high treason for attempting to assassinate Queen Victoria in 1840.The Queen was out riding on Constitution Hill with her husband, Prince Albert, on 10 June, when Oxford shot twice at the couple, missing both times. He was seized by onlookers, arrested and tried at the...

. Among these is also John Nichols Thom.

In 2003 the story of John Nichols Thom was made into a stage musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

External links

John-Thom.com - For a complete history of John Nichols Thom
History of Dunkirk in Kent
Wackiest self-proclaimed Messiahs
Listen to the story of John Thom and the battle, which was broadcast by BBC Radio 4 programme Open Country

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Early life

Canterbury

Messianism

Battle and Death

Aftermath and legacy

Further reading

External links