Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hildeyard, Thomas
HILDEYARD, THOMAS (1690–1746), jesuit, of a respectable Lincolnshire family, was born in London on 3 March 1689–90. He was educated in the jesuit college at St. Omer, entered the society on 7 Sept. 1707, and was professed of the four vows on 2 Feb. 1724–5. After teaching philosophy, theology, and mathematics at Liège, he was sent to the English mission. In September 1743 he was declared rector of the ‘college’ of St. Francis Xavier, which included the counties of Hereford, Monmouth, Gloucester, and Somerset, and the whole of South Wales; and died in that office on 10 April (N.S.) 1746 at Rotherwas, near Hereford, the seat of the Bodenham family, where he had been chaplain for upwards of twenty years. He was a scientific mechanician, and some of his ingenious astronomical clocks are said to be at Holt and Rotherwas.
His works are: 1. ‘Lectures on Penance,’ manuscript preserved at the presbytery, St. George's, Worcester. 2. A description of a timepiece invented by himself, which he is said to have published (Caballero).
[Caballero's Hist. Soc. Jesu Suppl. i. 57; Foley's Records, v. 907, vii. 360; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 116.]