Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reynolds, Thomas (1752-1829)
REYNOLDS, THOMAS (1752–1829), antiquary, born in 1752, was the son of Joseph Reynolds, a clergyman, of Marston Trussell, Northamptonshire, and belonged to the family of Dr. Edward Reynolds, bishop of Norwich [q. v.] He matriculated from Lincoln College, Oxford, on 18 Oct. 1769, and graduated B.A. in 1773, M.A. in 1777. In 1776 he was presented to the rectory of Little Bowden, Northamptonshire, which he held till his death, and to the vicarage of Dunton Bassett, Leicestershire, which he resigned in 1802. He was also vicar of Lubbenham from 1787 to 1800.
Reynolds wrote on Roman antiquities in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ and in 1794 communicated to Nichols, for his ‘History of Leicestershire,’ observations on the Foss and Via Devana (vol. i. p. cliv) and remarks on Lubbenham and Farndon camps (ii. 700). His principal work was ‘Iter Britanniarum; or that part of the Itinerary of Antoninus which relates to Britain, with a new Comment,’ Cambridge University Press, 1799, 4to. The book was severely handled in the ‘British Critic’ in an article attributed to Whitaker. Reynolds had collected and arranged the material that had accumulated since the publication of Horsley's ‘Britannia,’ and Dr. William Bennet [q. v.], bishop of Cloyne, who examined the proof-sheets, declared that the author had made many ingenious observations, though he had the odd idea that he could judge better of Roman roads ‘by consulting books in his closet than by examining them on the spot’ (Nichols, Literary Illustrations, iv. 712).
Reynolds died on 24 Dec. 1829. He had married early in life. His eldest son, Joseph, died in 1805, in his nineteenth year (Gent. Mag. 1806, pt. ii. p. 775).
[Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Gent. Mag. 1830, pt. i. pp. 373–4.]