Tymme married, at Hasketon, on 17 July 1615, Mary Hendy, who died in 1657, leaving one son, Thomas Tymme, who graduated M.D. at Cambridge on 3 July 1647, was admitted honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in December 1664, and died in 1687 (Addit. MS. 19165, f. 153; Munk, Coll of Phys. i. 334). By a deed dated 22 Sept. 1614 the elder Tymme gave eighteen acres of land in Hasketon for the maintenance of two poor parishioners. William Tymme, possibly a brother of Thomas, printed many books between 1601 and 1615 (Arber, Stationer's Reg.)
Besides the works mentioned above, Tymme published:
- 'A Catholike and Ecclesiasticall Exposition of the Holy Gospell after S. John … gathered by A[ugustine] Marlorat, and translated by T. Tymme,' London, 1575, 4to.
- 'A Commentarie upon S. Paules Epistles to the Corinthians, written by John Caluin, and translated out of the Latin,' London, 1577, 4to.
- 'A Commentarie of John Caluin upon Genesis … translated out of the Latin,' London, 1578, 4to.
- 'A Catholike and Ecclesiasticall Exposition of the Holy Gospel after S. Mark and Luke, gathered … by Augustine Marlorat, and translated out of Latin,' London, 1583, 4to.
- 'The Figure of Antichriste … disciphered by a Catholike … Exposition of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians/ London, 1586, 8vo.
- 'A Discoverie of Ten English Lepers [i.e. the Schismatic, Murderer, &c.] … setting before our Eies the Iniquitie of these Latter Daies,' London, 1592, 4to.
- 'A Briefe Description of Hierusalem … translated out of the Latin [of S. Adrichomius],' London, 1595, 4to; other editions, 1654, 4to, and 1666, 8vo.
- 'The Poore Mans Paternoster … newly imprinted,' London, 1598, 16mo.
- 'The Practice of Chymicall and Hermeticall Physicke … written in Latin by Josephus Quersitanus, and translated … ,' London, 1605, 4to.
- ' A Dialogue Philosophicall … together with the Wittie Invention of an Artificiall Perpetual Motion … ,' London, 1612, 4to.
- 'A Siluer Watchbell,' 10th impression, 1614, 8vo; this proved a very popular work of devotion, and it reached a nineteenth edition in 1659.
- 'The Chariot of Devotion … ,' London, 1618, 8vo. Tymme also 'newly corrected and augmented 'A Looking-Glasse for the Court' (1575), translated by Sir Francis Bryan [q. v.] in 1548.
[Works in Brit. Mus. Libr.; authorities cited; Wood's Athenae, ed. Bliss, i. 170, ii. 12; Halkett and Laing's Anonymous Lit. cols. 604, 2589.]
TYMMS, SAMUEL (1808–1871), antiquary, was born at Camberwell in Surrey on 27 Nov. 1808. Early in life he obtained employment on the staff of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine.’ He seems to have moved into Suffolk while still young, and almost the whole of his antiquarian work is intimately connected with that county, especially with the town of Bury St. Edmunds, where he was engaged on the staff of the ‘Bury Post.’ In 1857 he moved to Lowestoft, setting up a business as bookseller and stationer. There, in 1858, he began to edit and publish the ‘East Anglian,’ a local antiquarian magazine, which he continued to conduct until his death.
About 1840 he became a member of the Genealogical and Historical Society, and in 1853 a fellow of, and afterwards local secretary to, the Society of Antiquaries, in the ‘Proceedings’ of which institution his name not infrequently occurs. He also displayed considerable activity in the work of the West Suffolk Archæological Institute. Tymms died at Lowestoft on 29 April 1871. He married, on 10 July 1844, Mary Anne, daughter of John Jugg of Ely, and had five children.
He wrote:
- ‘The British Family Topographer’ (7 vols. 1832–43), giving an encyclopædic account of the antiquities of the different counties of England, classed according to the old English circuits.
- ‘Architectural and Historical Account of the Church of St. Mary, Bury St. Edmunds.’ This work appeared in instalments, beginning in 1848, and was reissued as a whole in 1854.
- ‘Bury Wills and Inventories,’ perhaps his best known work, which he edited for the Camden Society in 1850.
He also wrote many small antiquarian monographs, guide-books to Ely Cathedral and to Bury St. Edmunds, the latter of which has gone through several editions, and still maintains its position as a cheap handbook. A small treatise on ‘Peg Tankards’ (1827) may be noticed as a very early work. Mention should also be made of his contributions to the ‘Proceedings’ of the Suffolk Institute of Archæology, which he printed; as well as to the ‘East Anglian,’ which he both printed and edited.
There is in the British Museum Library an interesting folio volume consisting of newspaper cuttings—mostly of a biographical nature—extracted and arranged by Tymms, with manuscript notes added.
[East Anglian, 3rd ser. vii. 65 (May 1897)—biographical notice with portrait; Lowestoft Observer, 6 May 1871; Brit. Mus. Cat.; private information.]
