Author: Boulton, Thomas
Biography:
BOULTON, Thomas (1744?-1777: ancestry.com)
Boulton practised as a surgeon in Liverpool and published his comedy The Sailor's Farewell there in 1768. He might be the child of that name, son of James and Dinah (Rodes) Boulton, who was baptised at Childwall, Lancashire, on 24 Mar. 1744. On 27 Sept. 1767 he married Ellen Guy at Our Lady and St. Nicholas, Liverpool; it is not clear whether or not they had children. Increasing debts obliged him to emigrate, alone. He established a medical practice in Salem MA. His poem The Voyage was published in Boston in 1773: it draws on his experience as a surgeon on a slave-ship. Boulton fought as a loyalist in the Revolution, was wounded at Bunker Hill, and was later posted to Quebec. In 1776 he petitioned successfully for financial aid from the British government and returned to his family in England, where he died, perhaps the man of that name buried at Plumpton-Wood, Lancashire, on 13 Apr. 1777. According to the correspondence related to the petition, he had been tarred and feathered and imprisoned by rebels in Salem on account of his "active and unwearied endeavours in favour of His Majesty and his many writings in support of Government." His wife Ellen (later Ellen Edgar) was granted a loyalist pension. (ancestry.com 28 June 2025; Alfred Jones, Loyalists of Massachusetts . . . [1930], 42-3) HJ