Author: Horde, Thomas
Biography:
HORDE, Thomas (1744-1813: findmypast.com)
He was born at Lower Swell, Gloucestershire, and baptised on 8 Jun. 1744, the son of Thomas and Ann Horde. He published as “Thomas Horde, Jun.” until 1787, when his father died. In the same year he married Ann Spilsbury on 18 Jun. at Guiting Power, Glos. They appear to have had only one daughter, Ann Caroline, who died in childhood. His first two publications were tragedies, Leander and Hero (1769) and Zelida (1772) but later titles are mostly farces or “entertainments”—musical or otherwise—in two acts. The first was dedicated to Garrick. Watkins described him in 1816 as “ a dramatic writer of no credit.” He offered his works for sale from the grammar school in Stow on the Wold, a mile from his birthplace, where he may have been a master. His last known work, in a break from the pattern, was a verse satire published in Evesham in 1800 by John Agg, presumably the father of the poet (q.v.). He was buried, aged 69, at Lower Swell on 8 Oct. 1813. (findmypast.com 14 Nov. 2022; ancestry.com 14 Nov. 2022; Watkins) HJ