Author: Hancock, Thomas
Biography:
HANCOCK, Thomas (1783-1849: findmypast.com)
Hancock was born into the Quaker family of Jacob and Elizabeth (Phelps) Hancock in Lisburn, Ireland, and was sent to a Quaker school in Yorkshire for his basic education. He became a doctor, first apprenticing with a practitioner in Waterford and then taking a degree at the University of Edinburgh (MD 1806). He set up practice in Finsbury Square in London: several publications on medical subjects and his election as physician to the City and Finsbury dispensaries are marks of his success. In 1810 he returned to Waterford to marry Hannah Wakefield Strangman, with whom he had eight children. He was active in causes associated with the Society of Friends in both Ireland and England, for example writing in opposition to war and to capital punishment. The preface to his 1818 Elegy--dedicated to the Chairman and Committee of the London Peace Society--justifies the use of verse in a work on the subject of war that might have been easier for him to write in prose on the grounds that verse had a better chance of making an impression on the young than a treatise. The Principles of Peace, exemplified in the Conduct of the Society of Friends in Ireland during the Rebellion of the Year 1798 (1825) is his most original historical work. He moved to Liverpool in 1828 after the death of his wife, then in 1838 returned to Lisburn, where he died of heart disease on 16 Apr. 1849. (findmypast.com 23 Jan. 2022; ODNB 23 Jan. 2022) HJ
Other Names:
- T. Hancock