Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walcot, Thomas
WALCOT, Sir THOMAS (1629–1685), judge, the scion of an ancient Shropshire family, was the second son of Humphrey Walcot (1586–1650), who was receiver of the county of Salop in 1625 and high sheriff in 1631. He was greatly distinguished for his loyalty to Charles I, and made many sacrifices in the royal cause. Many of the family papers preserved at Bitterley Court relate to him. He married Anne, daughter of Thomas Docwra of Poderich, Hertfordshire, and was buried at Lydbury on 8 June 1650. Portraits of him and his wife are at Bitterley Court. His funeral sermon by Thomas Froysell, minister of the gospel at Clun in Shropshire, and entitled ‘The Gale of Opportunity,’ was printed in London in 1658. He left three sons—John (1624–1702), his heir; Thomas, the subject of this article; and William, page of honour to Charles I, whom he attended on the scaffold. The half of the blood-stained cloak worn by the king on that occasion is still preserved at Bitterley Court.
Thomas was born at Lydbury on 6 Aug. 1629, and, having entered himself a student of the Middle Temple on 12 Nov. 1647, was called to the bar on 25 Nov. 1653, chosen a bencher on 11 Nov. 1671, and served as Lent reader in 1677 (Registers). Walcot practised in the court of the marches of Wales, and on 15 Feb. 1662 was made king's attorney in the counties of Denbigh and Montgomery. He was recorder of Bewdley from 1671 until his death (Nash, Hist. of Worcestershire; Burton, Hist. of Bewdley). He was one of the royal commissioners appointed to collect the money levied in Shropshire in 1673. In April 1676 Walcot became puisne justice of the great sessions for the counties of Anglesea, Carnarvon, and Merioneth, at a salary of 50l. a year, and was made one of the council of the marches of Wales. He became chief justice of the circuit on 21 Nov. 1681, and was knighted at Whitehall on the same day. His arms were placed in Ludlow Castle (Clive, Documents relating to the Marches). He represented Ludlow in parliament from September 1679 to January 1681. As the ‘Welsh judges’ were not prohibited from practising in the superior courts at Westminster, he followed his profession with such success, especially in the court of king's bench (cf. Shower, Reports), that he attained the degree of serjeant-at-law on 12 May 1680. He was granted the king's license to act as a justice of assize in his native county of Salop non obstante statuto on 19 July 1683. On 22 Oct. 1683 Walcot was promoted from the North Wales circuit to be one of the puisne justices of the king's bench, and as such sat upon the trials of Thomas Rosewell [q. v.] for treasonable words, and of Titus Oates [q. v.] for perjury in 1683 (State Trials, x. 151, 1198). His patent was renewed by James II on 7 Feb. 1685. He died at Bitterley on 6 Sept. 1685, at the age of fifty-six, and was buried in the parish church on 8 Sept. (Register).
From subsequent litigation it appeared that Walcot died intestate and insolvent. His insolvency, however, may be attributed to his benevolence of heart, for he and Sir Job Charlton being appointed trustees of the charitable will (dated 1674) of Thomas Lane, they repaired a house of Mr. Lane's (now Lane's Asylum), and converted it into a workhouse for employing the poor of Ludlow in making serges and woollen cloths, and spent large sums in carrying on the manufacture (Weyman, Members for Ludlow).
Walcot married at Bitterley, on 10 Dec. 1663, Mary, daughter of Sir Adam Lyttelton, bart., of Stoke Milburgh (Parish Register), and had a son Humphrey, whose son sold Bitterley in 1765.
[Bitterley papers, including letters from Charles I, Judge Jeffreys, and others, were indexed and reported on by Mr. (now Sir Henry) Maxwell-Lyte, and some are printed in Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. iv. 418–20. See also Patent Rolls and Fines and Recoveries in the Record Office; Official Ret. Memb. of Parl.; Foss's Lives of the Judges; Burke's Landed Gentry; Walcot Papers in British Museum, Addit. MS. 29743; private information supplied by Rev. J. R. Burton.]