Person:Thomas Thomason Perowne (1)

Thomas Thomason Perowne was born April 16, 1824 at Burdwan, Bengal the second son of the Reverend John Perowne, a missionary with the Church Missionary Society and his wife Eliza Scott, a teacher in the missionary school.

Thomas entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on June 2, 1843 and obtained his B.A. degree in 1847. Ordained deacon and priest in 1848 he was appointed curate of St Michael's, Cambridge, a position he held until 1853. He continued his studies and in 1850 obtained his M.A. degree. In 1850 he was the Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholar and became a Fellow of Corpus Christi in 1852. In 1854 he was awarded both the Norrisian and Hulsean prizes. In 1858 he obtained his Batchelor’s degree in Divinity and was Select Preacher in 1861.

1862 saw a return to his ecclesiastical duties with his appointment as Curate of Holy Sepulcher, Cambridge where he remained until 1867 when he was appointed Rector of Stalbridge, Dorset, a parish whose living was in the gift of Corpus Christi College.

It was at about this time that he married Mary Gillespie and whilst at Stalbridge they had two children. Thomas John Perowne born on August 23, 1868 and about a year later Mary Jane Eliza Perowne. Sadly Mary died in 1872 at the age of 28.

Thomas returned to East Anglia in 1874 as the Rector of Redenhall with Harleston and Wortwell, Norfolk and it was here in 1876 he married Hester Sancroft Holmes the daughter of the late William Sancroft Holmes and Hester Elizabeth Gilbert. In 1874 he took on the additional responsibility if Archdeacon of Norwich, which he held until 1910.

His connection with Corpus Christi continued and in 1880 he was Hulsean Lecturer and Ramsden Preacher. He was also the author of, Essential Coherence of the Old and New Testaments and the Memoir of the Rev. T. G. Ragland. He was also Joint Editor of Archbishop Parker's Life and Correspondence.

Hester died on April 17, 1891 and Thomas on May 6, 1913, at Redenhall rectory, where they are both buried in the churchyard. )