Author: Luscombe, Matthew Henry Thornhill
Biography:
LUSCOMBE, Matthew Henry Thornhill (1775-1846: ODNB)
He was baptised on 16 Apr. 1775 at St. Paul’s, Exeter, Devon, the second son of Samuel Luscombe, physician, and Jane (“Jenny”) Thornhill, who had married in 1769. He was educated at Exeter grammar school and Trinity College Cambridge (matric. 1793) but migrated the same year to St. Catharine’s (BA 1798, MA 1805). He later incorporated at Exeter College Oxford (BCL 1810, DCL 1810). He was ordained deacon (1797) and priest (1799). He was curate of Clewer, Windsor, Berkshire, and then master of the EIC College at Haileybury and curate of St. Andrew’s, Hertford (1806-19). He married Susannah (“Susan”) Dawes Harmood (1775-1845) on 30 June 1804 at St. George’s, Hanover Square, Westminster, London. They had two daughters and a son. They retired to Caen, France, in 1819, returned to England in 1824, but soon moved to Paris, where in 1825 he was appointed chaplain to the British embassy by George Canning, to whom he had dedicated The Pleasures of Society (1824). He served as chaplain in Paris until his death. He was later made superintendent of Anglican congregations in Europe. To increase his authority, he was consecrated bishop in the Scottish episcopal church on 25 Mar. 1825 at Stirling, but his right to ordain was questioned and in 1840 his powers were restricted to confirmation. He erected a new church in 1834 at rue d’Aguesseau, Faubourg St. Honoré, Paris, and in 1836 officiated at William Makepeace Thackeray’s marriage. He was one of the founders of the Christian Remembrancer in 1841. He was critical of Roman Catholicism in The Church of Rome compared with the Bible, the Fathers of the Church, and the Church of England (1839). He also translated Sermons from the French (1825), a collection by French Protestant divines. He assembled a collection of paintings by old and modern masters and was also an artist himself. He died of heart disease on 24 Aug. 1846 at Lausanne, Switzerland. His wife Susannah had died in Paris the previous year. (ODNB 8 Aug. 2023; ancestry.co.uk 8 Aug. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 8 Aug. 2023; CCEd 8 Aug. 2023; Edward Luscombe, Matthew Luscombe: Missionary Bishop in Europe [1992]; GM Nov. 1846, 539-40; SJC 10 July 1804; Weekly Chronicle 15 Nov. 1845; Illustrated London News 5 Sept. 1846) AA
Other Names:
- Matthew H. T. Luscombe