XV. JOHN THORPE, M. D.

derived his descent from an antient family seated in the county of Kent for several generations*.

Edward Thorpe was of Rolvynden, otherwise Rownden, in the reign of Henry VII; whose descendants were afterwards of Westerham.

Dr. JOHN THORPE, eldest son of John Thorpe, esq. (fifth in descent from the above-named Edward) by Anne his wife, was born at Newhouse, in the parish of Penshurst, March 12, 1681-2; and was educated at the grammar-school of Westerham in Kent, under the care of the then master, the learned and pious Thomas Maningham, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, who married one of the daughters of Mr. Ireland, who had succeeded, as master of that school, Mr. Hoadly, father of the celebrated Bishop of Winchester.

On the 14th of April 1698, he was matriculated as a Commoner of University College in Oxford,

* Of this let an epitaph in Westerham Church bear testimony: "Hic infra situm est corpus

Johannis Thorpe,

Ex antiquâ & honesta olim gente in agris Cantiano et Sussexiensi oriundorum. Uxorem duxit Annam, Johannis Luck, S. T. B. de Mayfield in diocesi Cicestrensi, filiam posthumam, et fratrum, prole tandem deficiente, cohæredem; ex quâ septem suscepit liberos, filios quatuor, filias tres.

30 Junij,

1703.

Obijt { Ille 20 Varii;,} A. D. {1794}

84.

70.

Posuerunt Johannes et Oliverus, ex Johanne Thorpe de Penshurst, filio ejus unico, qui connubium inivit nepotes et hæredes."

† Sister and coheir of Oliver Combridge of Newhouse, otherwise Harts, in the parish of Penshurst. She brought with her in marriage a very considerable landed estate in Penshurst, Speldhurst, Tunbridge, Chiddingstone, &c.

This school was at that time in great reputation; it was situate about a quarter of a mile out of the town, but has since been pulled down.

under

under the tuition of Mr. John Boraston, Fellow of that College; who being soon after obliged to residence, either at his curacy of Penshurst, or on his rectory of Addington, he was committed to the care and instruction of Mr. (afterwards Doctor) Thomas Cockman, then one of the Fellows, and afterwards Master of the said College. In Michaelmas term 1701, he took the degree of B. A. and that of Master on the 27th of June, 1704. On the 16th of May 1707, he was admitted Bachelor of Physick, and in July 1710 took the degree of Doctor.

On Saint Andrew's day 1705, he was elected F.R.S. which at that time consisted of but few members in comparison with the present number.

Soon after this he fixed his residence in Ormondstreet, London, near his friend Dr. Mead; and for several years assisted Dr. Sloane, then Secretary of the Royal Society, afterwards Sir Hans Sloane, President of the same Society, in publishing the Philosophical Transactions.

During his continuance in London he contracted an intimate acquaintance with the most eminent Physicians, Naturalists, and Antiquaries of that time.

At the pressing and repeated solicitations of many of his relations and friends, he, in the year 1715, quitted London, and settled at Rochester for the practice of his profession; where, at his leisure hours, he applied himself to his favourite study, the History and Antiquities of his native County, and more particularly those relating to the Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Diocese of Rochester. In this pursuit he employed several amanuenses, to copy and transcribe from the Registers and antient deeds and muniments of that See and Church, and from other public and private repositories of antient learning, whatever appeared pertinent to his purpose. His labour was also indefatigable in taking the sepulchral inscriptions and coat armour on monuments and painted glass within several miles of Rochester (with a copy of which he obliged that

great

great collector of antiquities his friend Edward Earl of Oxford); in searching and tracing out the site and ruins or remains of churches, chapels, chantries, cells, hermitages, hospitals, &c. many of which now lie hid in the midst of woods, over-run with bushes and brambles, and known to very few persons.-Having been chosen into several places of trust, and particularly into that of one of the Assistants of Rochester-bridge, of which he was elected one of the Wardens for the year 1733, he set himself to search out and make as complete a collection of materials as he possibly could, not only from antient Historians, but from patents, statutes, grants, inquisitions, commissions, and other authentic evidences, for illustrating and ascertaining the history and antiquities of that antient and well-constituted incorporated body. He endeavoured to shew that Rochester was the Durobrovis of the Romans; that Durolenum was most probably at or near Newenton; the Vagniaca at Swanscampe, near the head of the Fleet, which divides that parish from Northfleet; Noviomagum at Crayford; and that the emperor Claudius passed the Thames out of Kent into Essex from Higham to East Tilbury, the same continuing the most frequented place of passage between those two counties till after the dissolution of Higham-abbey; that there was a passage over the river Medway at Rochester, in the time of the Romans; that the first bridge was there built about an hundred years before the Norman Conquest, by king Edgar, Dunstan Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Rochester, and other considerable owners of lands in that part of the county, who settled large estates (commonly called the Contributory Lands) for the perpetual maintenance of the several parts or portions that they had built, which were constantly assessed to the support of those parts as long as that bridge continued, and which are now by Parliament made subject to taxations, applicable to the repairs of the present bridge, whenever the estates, since given to the support of

it (commonly called the Lands Proper) shall prove insufficient for such purpose. He likewise drew up an account of the building the present bridge by Sir Robert Knolls and John Lord Cobham, in the reign of King Richard II. and of the benefactions given to it, adding thereunto a great number of original grants, confirmations, licences of mortmain, inquisitions, surveys, decrees, orders, and other authentic instruments and evidences relating to it, and to the chantry there founded by the said Lord Cobham; together with a series of the wardens to the year 1575, and of the wardens and assistants from that to the present time, most of whom were the principal noblemen and gentlemen, owners of contributory lands in that part of the county. By his enquiries, industry, and labour, that Corporation hath been brought into a much more regular and laudable way of acting than formerly; and as he was very instrumental in redressing the many abuses and irregularities that had inadvertently and insensibly crept into the management of the affairs of that Corporation, so he strenuously opposed the corrupt practice of making a private advantage of a public charity: it having been his chief design, in whatever he was concerned, to make himself master as well of the antient as present state of the business, well knowing that the surest way of attaining a true knowledge of any thing is by tracing it up to and seeing its original institution, and to execute the trust reposed in him with justice equal to his judgment. He was very communicative, and always ready to assist and contribute any thing in his power toward the studies and labours of others; as hath been acknowledged by many of the most learned Antiquaries who were his contemporaries, particularly by Mr. Thomas Hearne the Oxford Antiquary, Browne Willis, esq. and the reverend Mr. Johnson, Editor of the Ecclesiastical Canons.

He practised his profession in the city of Rochester and county of Kent thirty-five years, thinking it as much

poor and

much his duty to relieve out of charity the necessitous in their afflictions, as those of affluent circumstances for a reward. He was void of pride, vanity, luxury, and ambition; having a desire of being a good man rather than to be thought a great one: in a word, he was remarked as a man free from all vices of self-interest, an enemy to fraud and deceit, and for having the strictest regard to truth, justice, and the public good, in all his actions.

He married Elizabeth, daughter of John Woodhouse, of Shobdon, in the county of Hereford, second son of Francis Woodhouse, of Ledicot, in that parish, who was second son of John Woodhouse of the Woodhouse, esq. in the parish of Byton, in that county, the antient seat of the family, where they had lived time out of mind, as appears by very antient deeds and writings, some of which are without date, and are supposed to be older than the reign of King Edward the First.

The works which Dr. Thorpe published are:

1. A letter in the Philosophical Transactions to Sir Hans Sloane, concerning worms in the heads of sheep, &c. dated July 24, 1704; vol. XXIV. p. 1800. 2. An account of a great quantity of Hydatides found in the abdomen, vol. XXXII. p. 17.

3. ΟΥΡΕΣΙΦΟΙΤΗΣ Helviticus, sive Itinera Alpina tria; from the MS. of Scheuchzer, a celebrated German Naturalist, with whom he corresponded.

4. A List of Lands contributory to Rochester bridge; one sheet folio.

5. A Collection of Statutes concerning Rochester bridge.

6. Articles of the High Court of Chancery for settling and governing Sir Joseph Williamson's mathematical school at Rochester.

At length, being worn out with the fatigues of his profession, and having contracted a cold in one of his journeys, it brought on a severe and fixed rheumatism, that terminated in an atrophy, which VOL. III.

LL

he