In Issue 3 of Marsden Family History News (Spring 1995), Rita Savage recounted the story of Betsy Marsden of Leeds. Thomas Lewen Marsden was Betsy’s younger brother, born when Betsy was just 18 months old. He was to lead a very different but no less interesting life to his older sister.

Thomas Lewen Marsden was born in Leeds, Yorkshire on 19 February 1812. He was the third son of William Marsden, who at that time was a wholesale bacon and flour merchant, and his wife Elizabeth. He was baptised at Leeds parish church on 10 June and given the middle name Lewen, which had been his mother’s maiden name. At this time, the family lived just south of Leeds Bridge in Hunslet Lane. Their home was possibly in Simpson’s Fold, just off Hunslet Lane, where they were certainly living between 1807 and 1809 but by the time Thomas was ten, the family had moved to Nos. 18 & 23 Lower Head Row which appear to have provided both residential and business premises.

William, as a merchant, would have been very much one of the middle class of the city. In common with many of the merchant class he saw Leeds Grammar School, the city’s oldest school, as the appropriate place for his son’s education. The Grammar School, which was established in 1552, still occupied the same building off North Street close to the city centre which it had occupied since 1620 and in which it was to remain until a move to more pleasant surroundings outside the city centre in 1859. The fees for the 100 or so students at this time were about £6 per annum. Thomas entered the school in 1822 at the age of 10 and left at the end of 1825. His education during this time would have concentrated on the classical languages and divinity.

Thomas was not destined to follow his father into a mercantile career but instead chose to train as a surgeon. Until 1856, it was not mandatory for surgeons and physicians to possess a degree and so Thomas did not go to a university. Instead, he moved to London and attended the Westminster Medical School and the Windmill Street School of Anatomy. In 1834 he was made a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries and the following year, at the age of 23, he was accepted as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

His education completed and his professional qualifications secured, Thomas returned to live in Leeds and was married at the parish church on 3 November 1836. His wife was 22 year old Elizabeth, the daughter of James Binns the owner of a substantial Leeds cloth finishing business. The couple avoided the reading of banns in the parish church by obtaining a licence from the Archbishop of York. It is possible that this reflected some distance between Thomas and the Anglican church, a subject to which we will return. Elizabeth’s portrait painted around 1832 by an unnamed artist, shows that she had dark hair and brown eyes.

Thomas already occupied premises at No. 1 Darley Street and this was to be the couple’s home for the next ten years and the birthplace of their five children. The couple’s first child, Theodore, was born in August 1838 but at the age of only 10 weeks was seized with convulsions and died. Thomas purchased a plot at the private Woodhouse Cemetery and Theodore was buried there on 4 November. A second child, a daughter whom they baptised Cassandra, was born in February 1841 but before the end of that year lay alongside Theodore in Woodhouse cemetery. Two further daughters followed, Selina Mabel in April 1843 and Henrietta just over a year later. Both were to survive the perils of Victorian infancy, marry and raise families of their own. Their final child, born in 1847, was another boy and the couple named him Thomas Lewen after his father. His life was, however, to be brief and he died just two days later. Thomas was to be forever denied the son who would have carried on his family name.

Following the death of this latest child, Thomas and Elizabeth together with Selina and Henrietta left the country and travelled to Turkey where they were to remain until about 1850. Perhaps Elizabeth’s health was failing and Thomas felt that the warmer climate would be beneficial. She had certainly had a history of gastritis and urticaria since about 1845. Elizabeth’s younger brother James and his wife Anne were already living in Turkey and it seems probable that this was a major factor in their decision. When in 1848 Thomas Kirkman, his sister’s husband’s uncle, died and Thomas was named as executor, he had an affidavit prepared in Constantinople (now Istanbul) which was sent to the probate court to enable probate to be granted in his absence and it was the discovery of this document which first brought to light Thomas’s stay in the country.

During his stay, he was involved in several adventures including life-threatening encounters with both scorpions and wolves. He was also introduced to the delights and benefits of the Turkish steam bath and this led to the first three of his several publications "The Turkish Bath", "Physical Regeneration by Hot Air" and "The Patriarchal Bath". His experiences also provided the material for a lengthy series of essays for young people published in 1861, following his return to England, in the Juvenile Magazine under the title "Tales about Turkey".

By 1850, the couple had returned to Leeds and moved into a new dwelling at 106 West Street. Thomas resumed his general medical practice and was also appointed as a medical referee for the London and City Insurance Company.

The following year Thomas’s father died. William Marsden had changed his occupation to become a collector of rates around 1840. At the time of his death in his 70th year,he and his wife Elizabeth were living at 5 Hope Street. Elizabeth, although three years older than her husband, outlived him by five years and died, aged 78, in November of 1856. Punctuating these already close family losses, however, was the greatest loss of all. Thomas’s wife Elizabeth died of tuberculosis at the home of her sister Mary on 7 May 1853 at the early age of 39.

The death of his wife seems to mark a turning point in Thomas’s life. He continued to live in Leeds working as a general medical practicioner but in 1857 he remarried. His new wife was Margaretta, the 45 year old daughter of Margaret Brace and her late husband George of Camden Town in London. George Brace had been a dyer and so it seems probable that Thomas’s acquaintance with the Brace family had come about through his late wife’s family. The wedding took place at the New Christian Church at Argyle Square, St. Pancras, London. This choice of venue, we shall see, is quite significant.

Thomas Marsden’s family were no strangers to nonconformist worship. His sister Betsy had already married into a Methodist family and Thomas had as early as 1835 been involved with William Binns, his wife’s brother and Joseph Burras, her sister Mary’s husband in procuring the property to establish a Baptist Tabernacle in Leeds. His marriage to Elizabeth had also been reported in the Baptist Magazine and so it seems he was already a practicing member of the Baptist church by this time.

The New Jerusalem Church had been set up in 1787 by former Wesleyan Methodist preachers on Methodist lines to disseminate the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist and mystical thinker. His followers were commonly referred to as "Swedenborgians". It is not clear when Thomas became involved with the New Jerusalem Church. It is certainly likely, given the bride’s prerogative in the choice of church that the Brace family were already members of the movement or perhaps it was in some way instrumental in bringing them together. Whatever the source of his involvement, it had developed by 1861 as far as lay preaching. His essays entitled "Tales About Turkey", published around this time contain strongly religious themes and promote Swedenborg’s teachings. In 1861, following the resignation of the previous pastor Mr. Storry, he was appointed pastor at the New Church’s chapel at Grove Place in Dalton, Huddersfield, which had been established since 1825.

Thomas and Margaretta continued to live in Leeds but moved to a new house at 20 Beckett Street, then at the very edge of the city. For a period his nephew Thomas Kirkman lived with them. To preach at Grove Place. Thomas would have taken one of the hourly trains from Leeds, a service which had opened in 1847 and which had already displaced the several horse-drawn coach services which had formerly linked Leeds to Huddersfield.

Thomas took over the Pastorate of Grove Place Chapel at a time when the movement was nationally under attack. In Huddersfield, the battle was waged in the Philosophical Hall and in the columns of the Huddersfield Examiner. In his defence of the movement Thomas was supported by the Reverends Woodville Woodman of Kearsley and Richard Storry of Heywood. The attacks do not appear to have greatly damaged the church and the public debates served to set the beliefs of the movement before a wider audience.

Whatever the theological differences between the Swedenborgians and the established church, their attachment to the monarchy was unquestionable. Following the death of Prince Albert in December 1861, the congregation held a memorial service at which Thomas delivered a eulogy on the life of the late Prince. The national spirit of mourning was also reflected at their annual festival meeting on Christmas Day evening but this was also a celebration with songs by the choir and other members of the congregation including Margaretta’s eight year old relation Harry Brace who recited "Speak Gently". Thomas, drawing again on his Turkish experiences, addressed the audience of 200-300 people on the subject of the customs of the East and how they illustrated the word of God.

On 25 September 1864, Thomas took the step of ordination into the ministry of the New Jerusalem Church. He was ordained at his own chapel and immediately following, baptised a child into the church. The event was marked by a public tea party held in the local school room the following evening. It appears that he and Margaretta moved house to Huddersfield about this time and took premises in Grove Place.

During his ministry at Dalton Thomas established a probationary class for training young people in the doctrines of the New Church. Support for the church appears to have remained strong, with a procession of 200 children being mustered for the Whitsuntide celebrations. Following his earlier medical publications, Thomas turned his hand to religious writing and published the first of several religious tracts, "The Shunamite’s Blessing" in 1865.

Thomas’s ministry at Grove Place ended in July of 1867. It appears that by now the chapel was facing some financial difficulties since it was resolved that Thomas should not be replaced for at least six months. His new appointment was as Minister to the branch of the church at Snodland, near Rochester in Kent. One of the final acts of his ministry was to conduct the marriage of his daughter Selina Mabel to John Hutchinson, a local wool merchant.

The society at Snodland had been established around 1852 by Charles Townsend Hook, the wealthy owner of a local paper mill whose father Samuel had earlier established a society in Gloucestershire. After meetings had been held for two years in the house of a local carpenter, they were moved to Hook’s house "Veles", where a chapel to accommodate 70 worshippers was eventually erected in 1864 and Rev. Charles Gladwell appointed minister. Gladwell resigned in 1867 and it was upon his resignation that Thomas was appointed minister to the Snodland society.

It was not long after his arrival at Snodland that Thomas came into conflict with Rev. J. G. Carey, the Anglican Vicar of Snodland. Carey appears to have been the instigator of the conflict with a letter in March of 1868 in which he accuses Thomas of "seducing" children and their parents away from his church through offering a tea party as a part of the Sunday school Easter activities. Carey’s wrath was the greater since the tea party was to be held on Good Friday, which he felt was a grossly inappropriate time for such frivolity.

Thomas replied a week later demanding withdrawal of Carey’s accusations but Carey was unrepentant and further correspondence was exchanged. Thomas’s efforts to convince Carey of his case extended to lending him a book entitled "Swedenborg’s Writings & Catholic Teachings" (which Carey temporarily claimed to have lost) but there was little apparent movement by either party in the dispute.

Following his initial conflict with Carey, Thomas appears to have had a less eventful ministry. He added to his religious publications during this period. His tract "Christian and New Jerusalem Dispensations" was published in 1868 to be followed over the next three years by two further tracts with the apocalyptic titles "Destruction of the World" and "The Noahic Deluge of Evils". His subsequent works consisted of "Contrast between the Lord’s First and Second Advent", "The Dead Christ and the Living Jesus" and "The Rational Faculty Restored".

In spite of his new responsibilities, Thomas did not sever his connections with the Dalton chapel. In 1875, he returned on a visit and addressed the congregation on the 50th anniversary of the Grove Place Chapel’s foundation. He also attended a picnic at Cockley Hall organised by the ladies of the Dalton Society and conducted a religious service for those present. Throughout his stay in Snodland he remained on the medical register but it is unclear whether he continued to practice medecine.

By 1875 the Snodland Society was able to attract 60-70 people to its anniversary tea and 45 children to celebrate the recently-founded Sabbath School. The society was gaining strength and under Thomas’s ministry and the Hook family’s patronage plans were made for a new church. The impressive Kentish ragstone building, built to seat 300 worshippers and complete with a bell-tower, cost £5000 and was consecrated on 27 June 1882. The cost was met by the Hook family and Col. Holland, then the manager of their paper works.

At about the time the new chapel was consecrated Thomas appears to have retired from full-time ministry and he and Margaretta returned to Dalton, where they moved into Holly Cottage. Here they would be near Thomas’s beloved and now motherless grandchildren, all of whom he baptised, and the home of his first ministry, Grove Place Chapel. It is possible that he felt his health to be failing since it was also early in 1882 that he drew up his will. He remained in Dalton until his death there on 16 July 1891.

His will tells us little about his possessions but their probate value is recorded as no more than £75. Wills for medical practicioners and ministers of the established church at this time might typically dispose of estates to the value of several hundred if not several thousand pounds. Such a modest estate suggests that Thomas had not used either his medical or religious activities as an opportunity to accumulate wealth and had lived by the principles which he had promoted.

The Marsden name in this line died with Thomas. His descendants, however, through his daughters number 147, the surviving 123 residing in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. They include two MFHN readers, Ted Hutchinson (009/048) and Janine Sobiski (009/235), both of Canada, to whom I am indebted for the information supplied in this biography. Other credits are due to Rita Savage (009/162) of Leeds, Steve Marsden (050/128) of Dalton and Donald Binns of Glossop who have each contributed valuable details of Thomas’s life. Acknowledgement is also due to Andrew Ashbee’s "A Little History of Snodland" for several details of Thomas’s life in the town.