Duke of Brabant, and in 1359 was a member of commissions of oyer and terminer for Sussex, Kent, and other counties, if, indeed, he is to be identified with the William de Thorp of that list. But the name was too common to be certain as to this, or as to the family to which the chief justice belonged, though it seems probable that he was either of Surrey or Sussex. Blomefield suggests that he was the Sir William who was brother of Sir Robert de Thorpe (d. 1372) [q. v.], the chancellor (Hist. of Norfolk, v. 147).
[Foss's Judges, iii. 527; Rymer's Fœdera, iii. 208–10, 392, 464 (Record edit.); Cal. Rot. Pat. pp. 142, 160; Abbrev. Rot. Orig. ii. 211–212; Rot. Parl. ii. 164, 200, 227, 254, 267 (Record publ.).]
THORPE, WILLIAM (d. 1407?), Wyclifite, was a native of the north of England, was educated at Oxford, and took priest's orders. He was tried for heresy in 1397 by Archbishop Thomas Arundel [q. v.], imprisoned, and set free by Richard Braybrooke, bishop of London. For ten years he travelled about preaching; in 1407 he preached at Shrewsbury that the sacrament was consecrated bread, and that pilgrimages, images, and swearing should not be suffered. He was charged by the bailiffs of Shrewsbury and imprisoned. From Shrewsbury prison he was sent to the castle of Saltwood, and was examined before Archbishop Arundel on 7 Aug. 1407. His fate is uncertain, but it is stated that he was burned at Saltwood, August 1407.
He wrote an account of his trial called ‘The Examination of William Thorpe’ and a ‘Short Testament to his Faith;’ both are printed in Foxe's ‘Actes and Monuments.’ The ‘Examination’ is a fine piece of English prose composition, emended and modernised by Tindal. More refers to it in 1532 in his ‘Confutation’ as ‘put forth, it is said, by George Constantine.’ Bale ascribes ‘Glosses on the Psalter’ to his pen; Tanner's ascription of the ‘A B C,’ an heretical book generally coupled with Thorpe's ‘Examination,’ appears to be an error.
[Foxe's Actes and Monuments, 1844, iii. 826, 961; Bale's Bibl. Brit. vii. 42.]
THRALE, Mrs. (1741-1821), friend of Dr. Johnson. [See Piozzi, Hester Lynch.]
THRELKELD, CALEB (1676–1728), botanist, was born on 31 May 1676 at Keibergh in the parish of Kirk Oswald, Cumberland (Synopsis, Be). In 1698 he graduated M.A. in the university of Glasgow, and soon afterwards became a nonconformist preacher. He graduated M.D. at Edinburgh on 26 Jan. 1712–13, and went to live in Dublin with his wife, three sons, and three daughters. At first he preached in a conventicle on Sundays and acted as a physician on week-days, but afterwards (dedication to Primate Boulter) became reconciled to the established church, practised medicine, and studied botany. He made botanical expeditions in every part of the neighbourhood of Dublin, into co. Wicklow, co. Meath, Queen's County, and into the north of Ireland. In 1727 he published in Dublin ‘Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum.’ The synopsis describes 535 species of plants with the localities in which they were found and their scientific, English, and Irish names. Threlkeld in most cases took the Irish names from a manuscript in his possession, ‘which I take to be of good authority’ (Synopsis, Br). He probably added a few notes of his own from the reports of rustics. Although the book has been frequently quoted as an authority for the Irish names of plants, the errors it contains show that Threlkeld had little acquaintance with the language. He died in Mark's Alley, Francis Street, Dublin, on 28 April 1728, and was buried in a graveyard in Cowan Street near St. Patrick's Cathedral.
[Threlkeld's Synopsis; Pulteney's Historical and Biographical Sketches of the Progress of Botany in England, 1790, ii. 196.]
THRING, EDWARD (1821–1887), schoolmaster, born at Alford in Somerset on 29 Nov. 1821, was fifth child of John Gale Dalton Thring, the rector and squire of Alford, by his wife Sarah, daughter of John Jenkyns, vicar of Evercreech in the same county, and sister of Richard Jenkyns [q. v.], master of Balliol. He was educated first at a local grammar school at Ilminster, and afterwards at Eton, where he became the head of the collegers, and was captain of Montem in 1841 on nearly the last occasion of that famous festival. In the same year he entered King's College, Cambridge, as a scholar. Three years afterwards he gained the Porson prize for Greek iambics, and became a fellow of his college. At that date, and for three centuries before, the King's scholars were allowed to proceed to a degree without examination. Although it was generally understood that Thring was the most distinguished scholar of his year, he objected earnestly to the continuance of this exceptional and time-honoured privilege, and in 1846 and 1848 he, as a fellow, wrote pamphlets strongly advocating its abolition. After much discussion, and with the consent of the provost and fellows, the custom was abandoned in 1851. Thring was ordained in 1846, and became a curate of St. James's
