Thomas Hancock (1783 - 1849)

Born 24 Mar 1783 in Lisburn, County Antrim, Ireland

Ancestors

Husband of Hannah Wakefield (Strangman) Hancock — married 30 Aug 1810 in Waterford, County Waterford, Ireland

Descendants

Died 16 Apr 1849 at age 66 in Lisburn, County Antrim, Ireland

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Paul Hancock [send private message]

Biography

Thomas was a Friend (Quaker)

Thomas, second son of the Irish Quaker linen manufacturer Jacob Hancock, was born on 24 March 1783 in Lisburn, County Antrim. An ambitious young man, he was educated at Ackford, Yorkshire, was apprenticed to a surgeon at Waterford, and graduated M.D. from the University of Edinburgh on 26 June 1809, receiving his licensate from the Royal College of Physicians in London the same year. In 1810, he married Hannah Wakefield Strangman. The association with the ancient Strangman family would be a source of pride for Thomas’ descendants.

Over the next 17 years, Dr. Hancock practiced medicine in London, living in Finsbury Square. He was elected physician to the City and Finsbury dispensaries. A man of extensive reading, he published works on medicine, law and religion, including An Elegy Supposed to be Written on a Field of Battle (1818), The Law of Mercy, a Poetical Essay on the Punishment of Death (1819), Researches into the Laws and Phenomena of Pestilence (1821), Essay on Instinct and its Physical and Moral Relations (1824), The Principles of Peace exemplified in the Conduct of the Society of Friends in Ireland during the Rebellion of the year 1798 (1825), The Laws and Progress of the Epidemic Cholera (1832), and A Defence of the Doctrines of Immediate Revelation and Universal Saving Light (1835).

In 1827, Thomas lost two children, Mary and John, to whooping cough, and the next year his wife Hannah died shortly after giving birth, leaving Thomas with six young children. The newborn, named Hannah Wakefield Hancock in her mother’s memory, was sent off to live with her aunts. Thomas’ eldest daughter Emma, at the age of 14, took charge of raising her younger siblings.

In 1829, shortly after Hannah's death, Thomas moved to Liverpool to open a new medical practice. In a gloomy letter to a friend, he wrote,

I may as well be in a situation, which holds out, with other advantages, a prospect, tho’ distant, of doing something worth a little patient waiting, in my profession, as bury myself in the obscurity of Lisburn.

Thomas did not prosper in Liverpool; he had to draw upon his savings and give up his carriage to economise. In 1836, he retired to Lisburn, where he lived with his eldest daughter Emma until her death from tuberculosis in 1843. He died of heart disesase in Lisburn on 16 April 1849. In his will, he left his property to his sons, subject to a curious condition:

...subject nevertheless to the barely possible but highly improbably (sic) contingency of being claimed by the lawful heirs of my brother John who went to America and for more than 20 years has never been heard of & was never married as we fully believe.

Sources

• Ireland, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Family Lists, image, FindMyPast (https://search.findmypast.com/record?id=S2%2FIRE%2FQUAKERS%2FL-B-M-5-2%2F0107&parentid=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FULSTER%2FBIR%2F006055 : accessed 01 February 2023), birth of Thomas Hancock on 24d 3mo (Mar) 1783, father: Jacob Hancock, mother: Elizabeth Phelps; citing Archive Reference LBM5.3, Ulster Friends Trustees Ltd.
• “Ireland, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Marriages,” database with images, FindMyPast (https://www.findmypast.com/transcript?id=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FMARR%2F5407G : accessed 01 February 2023), marriage of Thomas Hancock and Hannah Wakefield Strangman in Waterford on 30d 8mo (Aug) 1810; citing Register of marriages, WATERFORD, 1859, Religious Society Of Friends In Ireland Archives.
• “Ireland, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Deaths,” database with images, FindMyPast (https://www.findmypast.com/transcript?id=IRE%2FQUAKER%2FBURS%2F39728 : accessed 01 February 2023), death of Thomas Hancock on 16d 4mo (Apr) 1849, buried in Lisburn; citing Register of deaths, LISBURN, 1859, Religious Society Of Friends In Ireland Archives.
• Hancock, Thomas (1783-1849), Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 24[1]
• http://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk/index.php/home/viewPerson/625
• Copy of will of Thomas Hancock dated 17d 10mo (Oct) 1843, from collection of Paul Hancock.