deep. Thomasville was settled about 1825, was incorporated as atown in 1831, and was chartered as a city in 1889.
THOMOND, EARL AND MARQUESS OF, Irish titles borne by the great family of O’Brien, the earldom from 1543 to 1741 and the marqucssate from 1800 to 1855. Thomond, or Tuaidh-Muin, was one of the three principalities of Munster, forming the northern part of the province. Its earls were descended from Turlough O’Brien (c. 1009–1086), king of Munster, and through him from the celebrated king of Ireland, Brian Boroimhe. Turlough's descendants, Conchobhar O’Brien (d. 1267) and Brian Ruadh O’Brien (d. 1276), kings of Thomond, were both typical Irish chieftains. Conchobbar's tomb and effigy with a crown are still to be seen in the ruined abbey of Corcomroe, Co. Clare. His descendant Conor O’Brien (d. 1539), prince of Thomond, took part in the feud between the great families of Fitzgerald and Butler and was the last independent prince of Thomond. It is interesting to learn that in 1534, when he was in some straits, he wrote to the emperor Charles V. offering to submit to his authority. Conor's brother, Murrough O’Brien (d. 1551), prince of Thomond, the succeeding chief of the race, gave up his “captainship, title, superiority and country” to Henry VIII. in 1543, when he was created earl of Thomond. By special arrangement the earldom descended, not to his son Dermod, but to his nephew, Donough, who became the 2nd earl. Dermod, however, inherited the barony of Inchiquin, which was conferred upon his father at the same time as the earldom.
Conor O’Brien, the 3rd earl (c. 1534–c. 1582), was for some years at the outset of his career, harassed by the attacks of his discontented kinsmen. Then in his turn he rose against the English, but was defeated and fled to France; in 1571, however, he was pardoned and formally surrendered his lands to Elizabeth. One of his younger sons was Daniel O’Brien (c. 1577–c. 1664) who, after loyally serving Charles I. and Charles II., was created Viscount Clare in 1663. His grandson Daniel, the 3rd viscount (d. 1691) served James II. in Ireland, being outlawed and deprived of his estates by the English parliament. The three succeeding viscounts Clare all distinguished themselves in the service of France. Daniel, the 4th viscount, was mortally wounded at the battle of Marsaglia in 1693; his brother Charles, the 5th viscount (d. 1706), was killed at the battle of Ramillies; and the latter's son Charles, the 6th viscount (1699–1761) after a brilliant military career, was made a marshal of France in 1757. When Charles, the 7th viscount, died in 1774 the title became extinct.
Donough O’Brien, the 4th earl (d. 1624), called the “great earl,” was the son and successor of the 3rd earl. He served England well in her warfare with the rebellious Irish during the closing year of Elizabeth's reign and was made president of Munster in 1605. He had two sons, Henry, the 5th earl, (d. 1639) and Barnabas, the 6th earl (d. 1657). During the Irish rebellion of 1640-41 Barnabas showed a prudent neutrality, and then joined Charles I. at Oxford, where in 1645 he was created marquess of Billing, but the patent never passed the great seal and the title was never assumed. The succeeding earls were Barnabas's son Henry (c. 1621–1691) and Henry's grandson Henry (1688–1741) who was created an English peer as Viscount Tadcaster. When he died the earldom of Thomond became extinct.
The estates of the earldom descended to the last earl's nephew, Percy Wyndham (c. 1713–1774), a younger son of Sir William Wyndham, Bart. He took the additional name of O’Brien and was created earl of Thomond in 1756. When he died unmarried the title again became extinct.
In 1800 Murrough O’Brien, 5th earl of Inchiquin (c. 1724–1808), was created marquess of Thomond. He was succeeded by his nephew William (c. 1765–1846) who was created a British peer as Baron Tadcaster in 1826. His brother James, the 3rd marquess (c. 1768–1855), was an officer in the navy and became an admiral in 1853. When he died the marquessate became extinct.
See John O'Donoghue, Historical Memoirs of the O’Briens (Dublin, 1860).
THOMPSON, FRANCIS (1860–1907), English poet, was born at Ashton, Lancashire, in 1860. His father, a doctor, became a convert to Roman Catholicism, following his brother Edward Healy Thompson, a friend of Manning. The boy was accordingly educated at Ushaw College, near Durham, and subsequently studied medicine at Owens College, Manchester; but he took no real interest in the profession of a doctor and was bent on literary production. A period of friendlessness and failure (from the point of view of “practical life”) followed, in which he became a solitary creature who yet turned his visions of beauty into unrecognized verse. It was not till 1893 that, after some five obscure years, in which he was brought to the lowest depths of destitution and ill health, his poetic genius became known to the public. Through his sending a poem to the magazine Merrie England, he was sought out by Mr and Mrs Wilfrid Meynell and rescued from the verge of starvation and self-destruction, and these friends of his own communion, recognizing the value of his work, gave him a home and procured the publication of his first volume of Poems (1893). His debt to Mrs Meynell was repaid by some of his finest verse. The volume quickly attracted the attention of sympathetic critics, in the St James’s Gazette and other quarters, and Coventry Patmore wrote a eulogistic notice in the Fortnightly Review (Jan. 1894). An ardent Roman Catholic, much of Francis Thompson's verse reminded the critics of Crashaw, but the beauty and splendid though often strange inventiveness of his diction were immediately recognized as giving him a place by himself among contemporary poets, recalling Keats and Shelley rather than any of his own day. Persistent ill health limited his literary output, but Sister Songs (1895) and New Poems (1897) confirmed the opinion formed of his remarkable gifts. But his health was hopelessly broken down by tuberculosis. Cared for by the friends already mentioned, he lived a frail existence, chiefly at the Capuchin monastery at Tanlasapt, and later at Storrington; and on the 13th of November 1907 he died in London. He had done a little prose journalism, and in 1905 published a treatise on Health and Holiness, dealing with the ascetic life; but it is with his three volumes of poems that his name will be connected. Among his work there is a certain amount which can justly be called eccentric or unusual, especially in his usage of poetically compounded neologisms; but nothing can be purer or more simply beautiful than “The Daisy,” nothing more intimate and reverent than his poems about children, or more magnificent than “The Hound of Heaven.” For glory of inspiration and natural magnificence of utterance he is unique among the poets of his time. (H. Ch.)
THOMPSON, SIR HENRY, Bart. (1820–1904), English surgeon, was born at Framlingham, Suffolk, on the 6th of August 1820. His father wished him to enter business, but circumstances ultimately enabled him to follow his own desire of becoming a physician, and in 1848 he entered the medical school of University College, London. There he had a brilliant career, and obtained his degree at London University in 1851 with the highest honours in anatomy and surgery. In 1851 he married Miss Kate Loder, a talented pianist, who, though stricken with paralysis soon afterwards, was always a devoted helpmate to him. In 1853 he was appointed assistant surgeon at University College Hospital, becoming full surgeon in 1863, professor of clinical surgery in 1866, and consulting surgeon in 1874. In 1884 he became professor of surgery and pathology in the Royal College of Surgeons, which in 1852 had awarded him the Jacksonian prize for an essay on the Pathology and Treatment of Stricture of the Urethra, and again in 1860 for another on the Health and Morbid Anatomy of the Prostate Gland. These two memoirs indicate the department of medical practice to which he devoted his main attention. Specializing in the surgery of the genito-urinary tract, and in particular in that of the bladder, he went to Paris to study under Civiale, who in the first quarter of the 19th century proved that it is possible to crush a stone within the human bladder, and after his return he soon acquired a high reputation as a skilful operator in that
