Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Washbourne, Thomas
WASHBOURNE, THOMAS (1606–1687), canon of Gloucester, born in 1606, was younger son of John Washbourne of Wichenford, Worcestershire, by his second wife, Elenor, daughter of Richard Lygon (d. 1584) of Madresfield, ancestor of the earls Beauchamp. The Washbourne family had been settled in Gloucestershire for several centuries. Thomas entered Balliol College, Oxford, as a commoner in 1622, and graduated B.A. on 13 Feb. 1625–6, M.A. on 25 June 1628, and B.D. on 1 April 1636. In 1639 he was made rector of Loddington, Northamptonshire, and in 1640 of Dumbleton, Gloucestershire. In 1643 he was nominated to a prebend in Gloucestershire Cathedral, and is said to have been installed in the night owing to the civil war. He does not seem to have been ejected from his livings during the Commonwealth (Walker, Sufferings, ii. 33), but at the Restoration he was formally presented to his prebend on 23 July 1660 and admitted 7 Aug.; nine days later he was created D.D. at Oxford. From 1660 to 1668 he was vicar of St. Mary's, Gloucester. He died there on 6 May 1687, and was buried in the cathedral. By his wife, a daughter of Dr. Samuel Fell [q. v.], he had a large family.
Washbourne published two sermons and ‘Divine Poems,’ London, 1654, 8vo. Prefixed to the latter are ‘Verses to his Friend Thomas Washbourne,’ by Edward Phillips [q. v.], Milton's nephew. Specimens from Washbourne's poems are printed in Brydges's ‘British Bibliographer’ (iv. 45), and the whole work was edited, with a biographical introduction, by Dr. A. B. Grosart, in the ‘Fuller Worthies Library,’ 1868.
[Works in Brit. Mus. Libr.; Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iv. 212; Masson's Milton, v. 179, 226–227; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Rudder's Gloucestershire, 1781, pp. 359–60; Bigland's Gloucestershire Collections; Le Neve's Fasti, i. 449; Lansd. MS. 860, art. 164.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.275
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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