Author: Minshull, Thomas
Biography:
MINSHULL, Thomas (1760-1810: ancestry.com)
He was baptised at St. Michael’s, Chester, Cheshire, on 19 Sept. 1760, the eldest son of Giles Minshull (1726-1809), a linen-draper, and his first wife Ann Crawford (1734-67), who had married at Eccleston, Cheshire, in 1759. Thomas and his two younger brothers John and William all went into the book trade as printers, stationers, booksellers, bookbinders, or some combination of those trades: John stayed in Chester, William went to Lancaster, and Thomas settled in Shrewsbury. Probably his most successful and durable work was his town directory, The Shrewsbury Guide, and Salopian Directory (1786, several editions) but he also produced numerous verse broadsides or prose pamphlets on public occasions such as elections—some of them signed only “Q”—with titles such as Hawkestone Manured (1786) and The Birmingham Embassy (1786). He married Mary Byrch at Chester on 26 Oct. 1791; they already had two children, born on 26 June 1786 and 15 Sept. 1791, and do not appear to have had more. He died at Shrewsbury after “an illness of 14 months” and was buried at the Abbey on 22 July 1810; his wife died after “a lingering illness” on 14 May 1812. (ancestry.co. 24 June 2023; findmypast.com 24 June 2023; R. Stewart-Brown, “The Stationers, Booksellers, and Printers of Chester to about 1800,” paper read to the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 10 Dec. 1931, online at hslc.org.uk; Chester Courant 24 July 1810, 19 May 1812)
Other Names:
- T. Minshull