Author: Rushton, Thomas
Biography:
RUSHTON, Thomas (1731/32-1809: ancestry.com)
pseudonym A plain dealer
Early biographers of Edward Rushton (q.v.) state that his father, the subject of this headnote, was a son of husbandman William Rushton of Walton on the Hill, Lancashire (baptized 13 Oct. 1723). For two reasons, he is more likely to have been the son of Francis Rushton: when he died (1809), his reported aged was 77; he named two of his sons Francis, none of his sons William. Nothing is known about his early life. On 12 Nov. 1755 he married Sarah (1734-1774), the daughter of the Rev. Henry Tatlock, curate of Walton on the Hill, and his wife, Nancy (Johnson) Tatlock. Besides Edward, the poet’s children by Sarah were Thomas Francis (b 1759), Ann (b 1763), and James (b 1771). Rushton was a hairdresser and peruke maker, in business at a succession of Liverpool addresses in: Castle Street; Temple Lane; and Harrington Street; and Old Dock Quay. Between 1786 and 1796, he advertised as an importer of spirits at 39 Pool Lane. In 1794, he was a bookseller in Paradise Street. The temper of the Rushton household cannot have been placid: his second wife—Nancy Antrobus (she was a minor when they married in Marton chapel on 13 Jan. 1783)—was a woman “of considerable talent, but of a most violent temper;” his politics, expressed in his satire, Party Dissected, were conservative and loyalist; his son Edward’s were radical and abolitionist. By Nancy (also called “Ann”) he had eleven children: Thomas (b 1785); Ann (b 1786); Elizabeth (b 1788); Catherine (b 1792); John (b 1797); Mary (b 1798); Francis (b 1800); and two sets of twins, Ann and Nancy (b 1783), and Ann and Mary (b 1788). His son Edward took over the Paradise Street bookselling business as early as 1797. Having outlived his second wife, he died on 9 Sept. 1809. On 12 Sept., he was buried in the churchyard of Walton on the Hill. At probate (7 June 1810), his estate was valued under £3,500. The poet should not be confused with the Liverpool beer brewer Thomas Rushton (d 1822). Convicted of forgery, that man was transported to Tasmania in 1803. (ODNB under “Rushton, Edward 1756-1814” 31 July 2024; familysearch.org 31 July 2024; ancestry.com 31 July 2024; Universal Magazine 64 [July 1779], 55; GM 54:2 [1784], 559; Manchester Mercury, 13 Apr. 1790; [Anon.], Sketches of Obscure Poets [1833], 46-47) JC