Rev. Thomas Walker Horsfield FSA (christened 2 December 1792, Sheffield - 26 August 1837, Chowbent, Lancashire), was an English Nonconformist minister, topographer, and historian best known for his works The History and Antiquities of Lewes (1824-26) and The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex (1835).
He was the eldest of six children of James Horsfield and Ann Hewett who were married 29 July 1790 in St Peter's Cathedral, Sheffield, Yorkshire. [1]
Horsfield was minister at the Westgate Chapel in Lewes, later changed from Presbyterian to Unitarian. He found time from his ministerial duties to take on pupils. [2]
In 1835, Horsfield was appointed to succeed Benjamin Rigby Davis as Presbyterian minister at the Chowbent Chapel, Atherton, Lancashire.
He died there on 26 August 1837, leaving a widow and eight children. [2]
His History of Sussex in two volumes became a standard reference work for later Sussex historians.
Horsfield compiled for John Baxter The History and Antiquities of Lewes and its vicinity (with an appendix, an Essay on the Natural History of the District by Gideon Mantell), two vols. Lewes, 1824–7. This was followed by a more major undertaking, The History and Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex, two vols. Lewes, 1835. For the first volume, which contains East Sussex, Horsfield was assisted by William Durrant Cooper; the second volume, on West Sussex, is mainly an abridgment of the histories of James Dallaway and Edmund Cartwright (1773–1833). [2]
The General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches is the umbrella organisation for Unitarian, Free Christians, and other liberal religious congregations in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was formed in 1928, with denominational roots going back to the Great Ejection of 1662. Its headquarters is Essex Hall in central London, on the site of the first avowedly Unitarian chapel in England, set up in 1774.
Atherton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England and historically part of Lancashire. The town, including Hindsford, Howe Bridge and Hag Fold, is 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Bolton, 7 miles (11.3 km) east of Wigan, and 10 miles (16.1 km) northwest of Manchester. From the 17th century, for about 300 years, Atherton was known as Chowbent, which was frequently shortened to Bent, the town's old nickname. During the Industrial Revolution, the town was a key part of the Manchester Coalfield.
Gundred or Gundreda was the Flemish-born wife of an early Norman baron, William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey. She and her husband established Lewes Priory in Sussex.
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I offer unto you my noble countriemen, as the most proper persons to whom it can be presented wherein you will see very much of your worthy ancestors, to whose memory I have erected it as a monumentall pillar and to shew in what honour they lived in those flourishing ages past. In this kind, or not much different, have divers persons in forrein parts very learnedly written; some whereof I have noted in my preface: and I could wish that there were more that would adventure in the like manner for the rest of the counties of this nation, considering how acceptable those are, which others have already performed
William Durrant Cooper (1812–1875) was an English lawyer and antiquary.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Goodwin, Gordon (1891). "Horsfield, Thomas Walker". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 27. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
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