Thomas Wynne (1807 - 1891)

Born 7 Feb 1807 in Tenbury, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom

Husband of Sarah (Horton) Wynne — married 27 Dec 1830 (to 4 Apr 1840) in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom

Husband of Harriet (Hitchcox) Wynne — married 4 Mar 1841 (to 10 Jun 1849) in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom

Husband of Ellen (Joule) Wynne — married 11 Jul 1855 in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom

Descendants

Died 4 Jun 1891 at age 84 in Gnosall, Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom

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Biography

Thomas was born in 1807.

He passed away in spring 1891:

We have this week to record the death of Mr. Thomas Wynne, F.G.S., M.I.C.E., late her Majesty's Inspector of Mines for North Stafford, a position which he held from 1851 up to the early part of last year, when he resigned. Mr. Wynne was a native of Tenbury in Worcestershire, where he was born on February 7, 1807.

In 1830 he removed to Longton, where for many years he was an active partner in Mossfield Collieries. In 1851 he was appointed Inspector of Mines for North and South Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Cheshire, and Shropshire. In 1862, the district proving too large for one official to supervise, South Staffordshire and Worcestershire were taken from it. Mr. Wynne was possessed of an iron constitution and was wont to go about with all the vigour of a young man until September last year, when he met with a serious trap accident, in which he had an arm and a leg broken and was bruised on several parts of the body. He had since been confined to his room. He died on Thursday at his residence, the Manor House, Gnosall, in his 85th year. On his retirement from the position of Chief Inspector of Mines, Mr. Wynne was presented with an illuminated address and a purse of gold by the North Staffordshire Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers.

In politics Mr. Wynne was a strong Liberal, and he took an active part in the return of Mr. Hamar Bass for West Staffordshire in the General Election in 1885. He was greatly dissatisfied with the hon. member's firm Unionist attitude at the General Election of 1886, and the story goes that on the first occasion when he met Mr. Bass after the election he startled him by the vehement exclamation: "You are sitting under false pretences; you stole my vote."

For many years the deceased was chairman of the directors of the Stone Gas Company. At Gnosall, where he has lived for the last 16 years and engaged in farming, he took a deep interest in the affairs of the parish and represented Gnosall on the Newport Board of Guardians.

A Potteries correspondent writes :- "Mr. Wynne was one of the first Inspectors appointed after the passing of the Coal Mines inspection Act in 1854. He was at that time in business in Longton as a grocer, and Mr. Ricardo, M.P., used his influence in obtaining Mr. Wynne the appointment. He had an interest in a colliery near Longton, but had little, if any, practical knowledge of mining. His first district was Lancashire, and a few years afterwards he came to Staffordshire, where he continued his duties until the end of 1888, when he retired, after 35 years' service, with the maximum pension of £600 a year. Mr. Wynne was engaged in investigating some of the most serious colliery disasters which have occurred in the North Staffordshire coalfield. Previous to 1877 he was opposed to the theory of coal dust being an element in colliery explosions, but after the Bunker's Hill accident in that year he changed his opinion on the point." ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ (obituary, with minor formatting and spelling corrections), Staffordshire Advertiser, June 6, 1891, page 4