Thomas Stock (founder)
Established first Sunday school
Thomas Stock (1750–1803) established the first Sunday school in the United Kingdom.
Early life and education
Thomas was the son of Thomas Stock, gentleman of Gloucester. The young Thomas was sent to John Roysse's Free School in Abingdon-on-Thames (now Abingdon School), where he was a boarder from 1761 to 1767. After Abingdon, he gained a scholarship to Pembroke College, Oxford and graduated BA 1771.
Career
Entering Holy Orders, Stock was elected to a college fellowship from 1771 to 1774 and then was curate at Ashbury in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). While at Ashbury, he formed the first Sunday school in the country in 1777. Stock became rector of St Aldate's and then of St John Baptist's, Gloucester and headmaster of Gloucester Free School. He was also vicar of Glasbury-on-Wye. At Gloucester, jointly with Robert Raikes, proprietor of the Gloucester Journal, Stock became co-founder of the Sunday School movement.
From 1787 until his death in 1803 he was holding the living at his Gloucester incumbencies and headmastership.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Thomas Stock (founder)” is established first Sunday school. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Thomas, Stock and founder, not as a finished interpretation.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7794210. VIAF identifies the subject as 29410299. The Library of Congress control number is nr93038337. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1750, 1803, 1761 and 1767.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Stock (founder)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.