Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gore, Thomas
GORE, THOMAS (1632–1684), writer on heraldry, born at Alderton, Wiltshire, on 20 March 1631–2, was the third son of Charles Gore, of Alderton, by his wife Lydias, daughter and heiress of William White, citizen and draper of London. By the deaths of his two elder brothers, Charles and Edward, Gore became heir to the estate. After receiving some instruction from Thomas Tully [q. v.] at Tetbury, Gloucestershire, he was admitted a gentleman-commoner of Magdalen College, Oxford, on 22 May 1650 (Addit. MS. 28020, ff. 130–7). Wood, however, states that Gore became a commoner of Magdalen in May 1647, and took the degree of B.A. in due course (Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 132). From the university he proceeded to Lincoln's Inn, but on the death of his mother, 3 Jan. 1654–5, he retired to his patrimony at Alderton, and devoted himself to the study of heraldry and antiquities. At a meeting of county gentlemen at Devizes for choosing knights of the shire in March 1659, a survey of Wiltshire, after the manner of Dugdale's ‘Warwickshire,’ was suggested and entrusted to Gore and others. Nothing however came of it (Gough, British Topography, ii. 315). He was sworn a gentleman of the privy chamber in ordinary, 13 Nov. 1667. In 1681 he was elected high sheriff of Wiltshire (Jackson, Sheriffs of Wiltshire, p. 35). Some dishonourable acts of his under-officers obliged him to publish a declaration entitled ‘Loyalty displayed, and Falshood unmask'd, … in a Letter to a Friend,’ s. sh. 4to, London, 1681. Gore died at Alderton, on 31 March 1684, and was buried in the church; his monument is against the north wall of the chancel. By his marriage at Bristol, on 18 Sept. 1656, to Mary, daughter of Michael Meredith, of Southwoode, Gloucestershire, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Langton, alderman of Bristol, he had Thomas, born 17 Dec. 1665 and married to Frances, fifth and youngest daughter of John Eyre of Little Cheldfield, Wiltshire; Edward, who died 22 Sept. 1676; and Mary, born in February 1663, who became the wife of Thomas Polden of Imber in the same county. His widow survived until 1717. The family in the direct line ending in a female, the estates fell into other hands. Gore's choice library of books and manuscripts on his favourite science of heraldry passed, it is believed, to the possession of George Montagu, F.L.S., who died in August 1815 (Moule, Bibliotheca Heraldica, p. 197; Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxv. pt. ii. p. 281). Two of his manuscripts are now in the British Museum. Addit. MS. 28020 is ‘An Alphabet in Blazon of the paternall Coates, Crests, & Mottoes of all (or the Major Part of) the Gentrey in the County of Wiltes,’ 1663, 124 ff., 4to; ff. 130–7 contain valuable biographical memoranda by C. Hopper. ‘Notes on the Family of Scrope, from 1389 to 1660,’ a folio of 37 leaves also dated 1663, is numbered Addit. MS. 28209, and has a few additions by the donors, G. P. Scrope and E. C. Lowndes. Another manuscript, entitled ‘Syntagma Genealogicum; or, a Genealogical Treatise of the Family of the Gores of Aldrington or Alderton in the Hundred of Chippenham and County of Wilts,’ folio, 1666, is fully described and a copious pedigree given by Joseph Hunter at ff. 45–8 of Addit. MS. 24481. A fourth manuscript in folio written in 1662 and illustrated with drawings, called ‘Spicilegia Heraldica,’ was sold as lot 1886 at James Bindley's sale in December 1818 (Catalogue, p. 59; Moule, 197). Gore published:
- ‘Nomenclator Geographicus Latino-Anglicus et Anglico-Latinus, alphabeticè digestus; complectens plerorumque omnium M. Britanniæ & Hiberniæ regionum, comitatuum, episcopatuum, &c. nomina et appellationes, &c. (Series alphabetica Latino-Anglica nominum gentilit[i]orum, sive cognominum, plurimarum familiarum … quæ … in Anglia floruere, &c.)’ 2 pts., 8vo, Oxford, 1667. The author was preparing to print a second edition just before his death.
- ‘Catalogus alphabeticè digestus, plerorumque omnium authorum qui de re heraldica Latinè, Gallicè, Italicè, Hispanicè, Germanicè, Anglicè, scripserunt: interspersis hic illic qui claruerunt in re antiquaria, ea saltem parte quæ heraldriæ facem accendit,’ 4to, Oxford, 1668 (another edition, enlarged, as ‘Catalogus in certa capita, seu classes, alphabetico ordine concinatus,’ &c., was issued, 4to, Oxford, 1674).
He also published ‘A Table shewing how to blazon a Coat ten several ways,’ 1655, a single folio sheet, taken verbatim from Sir John Ferne's ‘Blazon of Gentrie,’ 1586.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 132–3; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. xvi. 108; Gent. Mag. vol. lxii. pt. i. pp. 416, 518–19, 3rd ser. xvi. 740–1; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ii. 53, 54, xi. 284, 404; Moule's Bibliotheca Heraldica, pp. 144, 178, 179, 194.]