Thomas Tomkinson
English writer
Thomas Tomkinson (1631–1710) was an English Muggletonian writer born at Ilam, near Dovedale, in Staffordshire. His parents, Richard and Ann, farmed at Sladehouse and Thomas took over the business as a yeoman farmer even while his father was alive. His faith was initially Presbyterian but in 1661 he read a book by Laurence Clarkson (presumably The Lost Sheep Found) and became attracted to Muggletonianism. Earlier, in February 1652, he had had a revelatory experience similar to the one Lodowicke Muggleton reported in 1650 but without any experience of the direct voice of God which had come to John Reeve and which was the foundation experience of Muggletonianism. Since John Reeve died in 1658, these dates mean that Tomkinson was one of the first prominent Muggletonian personalities not to have known Reeve personally.
Life
Tomkinson visited London, where he met Lodowicke Muggleton on Mayday 1662. He returned to Staffordshire and married, Ann, shortly afterwards. He converted a sizeable number of family, friends and neighbours to the new faith, enough to make himself a nuisance to the parish authorities. He said he managed to keep the peace only "through a little money and friendship". On 9 December 1664 he was blessed by Lodowicke Muggleton.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as english writer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15452256. VIAF identifies the subject as 32342795. The Library of Congress control number is n85029644. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1631, 1710, 1661 and 1652.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Tomkinson” 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.