Rev. Thomas Lowndes
Birth: date unknown, Westminster, City of Westminster, Greater London, England
Death: 27th December 1797, England
Burial: St. Peter’s churchyard, Astwood, Milton Keynes Borough, Buckinghamshire England
Memorial ID: 140168326
Rev. Thomas Lowndes was born about 1724 at his father William Lowndes of Astwoodbury’s , Duke Street residence in Westminster, and attended King Edward VI Free Grammar School for boys in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. He was admitted to St. John College, Cambridge in January 1742 aged 17, taking a degree of LL.B. in 1748. He was ordained Deacon on 5th June 1748 by the Bishop of Lincoln, and licensed to North Crawley, Bucks. In May 1752, he was instituted Vicar of Astwood and in 1771 Rector of North Crawley, receiving dispensation to do so as the distance between the churches was two miles.
Because Thomas had been living in the vicarage at Astwood since May 1752 and was settled there, when he became Rector of North Crawley in 1771 after the previous Rector Charles Cole died after 54 years’ service, he decided not to take up residence in the North Crawley Rectory with 18 rooms and outbuildings at Broadmead.
He was entitled to the Glebe land of 32 acres surrounding the house and no doubt let it as well as collecting his village tithes.
Glebe was historically endowed land that provided the rector of a parish with part of his income either through farming it himself or by letting it out to a tenant.
Thomas Lowndes – Land Allocation at Enclosure was for:
- 36 acres in lieu of his common field glebe
- 197 acres in lieu of his tithes off the common field
- 40 acres in lieu of his tithes off the meadows
- 138 acres in lieu of his tithes off the old enclosures
A total of 411 acres in the North Crawley enclosure award of 1773
together with
- 32 acres of enclosed glebe which he already had possession of
made 443 acres in total in North Crawley.
This substantial acreage made the living one of the richest in North Bucks.
He remained a Bachelor all his life, hunting, preaching and visiting his London home.
On his death Thomas Lowndes Will left most of his wealth to family members