Thomas Heywood (antiquarian)


Thomas Heywood was an English antiquarian. He was closely involved in the Chetham Society and its publications.

Early life

The son of Nathaniel Heywood of Heywood's Bank and his wife Anne Percival, daughter of Thomas Percival, and younger brother of Benjamin Heywood, he was born in Manchester on 3 September 1797; James Heywood was his younger brother. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School. He graduated B.A. from Glasgow University in 1815.
Heywood was from 1818 a partner in Heywood's Bank, called the Manchester Bank and, from 1795, Heywood Brothers & Co., with his father's surviving brother Benjamin Arthur Heywood, Benjamin, and Richard Heywood, another brother. He served the office of boroughreeve of Salford in 1826. In 1828 Thomas and Richard Heywood left the family business, which was carried on by Benjamin.

At Hope End

Thomas Heywood purchased Hope End, a mansion in Herefordshire, near Ledbury. It was sold in 1832 by Edward Moulton-Barrett, father of Elizabeth Barrett Browning who had lived there as a child; the sale was by auction on 25 August. Heywood went there to live, and was high sheriff of Herefordshire in 1840.
Heywood died at Hope End on 20 November 1866. Before leaving Manchester Heywood collected a library of local books, which was dispersed in a sale in 1835. His general library was sold at Manchester in 1868. The house at Hope End was sold in 1867 to C. A. Hewitt. It was demolished in the 1870s; its stable block eventually became a hotel.

Works

Heywood was an early member of the council of the Chetham Society, and edited the following of its publications:
For the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire he wrote a notice of the family of Percival of Allerton, Lancashire, and a description of an old Chester document.
In 1826 Heywood printed a pamphlet on The Earls of Derby and the Verse Writers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Manchester; it was reprinted in 1853 by the Chetham Society. In 1829 he annotated and printed The most Pleasant Song of Lady Bessy, the eldest Daughter of King Edward the Fourth.

Family

Heywood married in 1823 Mary Elizabeth, daughter of the merchant John Barton of Swinton, Lancashire, owner of Saxby Hall. Mary Elizabeth Sumner, founder of the Mothers' Union was their daughter. She married George Henry Sumner. They had another daughter, Margaret, who married her first cousin Sir Thomas Percival Heywood, 2nd Baronet, and a son Thomas, whose first wife was Mary Emily Beresford, daughter of Marcus Beresford. Margaret became a Catholic convert.