Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Grinfield, Thomas
GRINFIELD, THOMAS (1788–1870), divine and hymn-writer, son of Thomas Grinfield and brother of Edward William Grinfield [q. v.], was born at Bath in 1788, and educated at Wingfield, near Trowbridge, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. 1811. He was ordained 1813. He married his first cousin, Mildred Foster Barham; became curate at St. Sidwell's, Exeter; then rector of Shirland, Derbyshire; he subsequently resided at Clifton, and was for twenty-three years curate in charge of St. Mary-le-Port, Bristol. He died at Clifton on 8 April 1870, and was buried in the cemetery at Weston-super-Mare. Though he published little, his compositions were numerous, especially his sermons. Studious and contemplative, he mingled little with society. He was an accomplished scholar and poet. His works are: ‘Epistles and Miscellaneous Poems’(1815), ‘The Omnipotence of God, with other Sacred Poems’ (1824), ‘The Visions of Patmos’ (1827), ‘A Century of Original Sacred Songs,’ 'Sacred Poems,’ ‘Fifty Sermons by Robert Hall, from Grinfield's Notes,’ 1843, dedicated to Dr. Chalmers, ‘The Moral Influence of Shakespeare's Plays’ (1850), ‘The History of Preaching’ (ed. Canon Eden, 1880, with preface and memoir), and a multitude of small poems and lectures, many of which were published in the ‘Weston Mercury.’ There remain unpublished several manuscripts, especially a valuable series of theological lectures.
[Hist. of Preaching, ed. R. Eden, 1880; Page's Life of De Quincey, 1877, i. 44, 344; R.S.S. in Weston Mercury, 3 March 1888.]