Thomas Sockett was born on 20 November 1777 at 110 Aldersgate Street in the Smithfield area of London. He was the only child of Thomas Sockett, a bookseller and stationer, and Sarah Brightman, who had married on 11 February 1777 at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire.
His parents were dissenters, and did not believe in infant baptism; thus Thomas was not baptised as a child.
Thomas Sockett senior struggled financially and his bookselling business was not a success, resulting in the family frequently moving home. He was declared bankrupt and, in 1787, the family moved out of London to a small cottage in Weston Underwood, near Olney in Buckinghamshire, near his mother’s parents. The family’s near neighbour was William Cowper, the poet.
It is not certain where Thomas was educated, although an obituary said that he had received “the best education that the means and resources of the neighbourhood afforded”. This was probably at a school run by dissenters, as Thomas was described as “deep in arithmetic”, with good handwriting skills, and was proficient in Science, as well as French and Latin. If he had attended a school run under the auspices of the Church of England, his education would have been more classics-based.
In 1792, when he was 14, Thomas met the poet, William Hayley, who had travelled from his home at Eartham, near Chichester, to visit Cowper. While Hayley was at Weston Underwood, Cowper’s companion, Mary Unwin, suffered a stroke. As well as being a poet, Hayley also practiced medicine and was an advocate of the then-fashionable electric shock treatment. It so happened that Thomas’s mother, Sarah had an electric shock machine to treat bouts of depression, so young Tom was asked to deliver the machine to Cowper’s residence. [As today, the 14-year old boy was more au fait with the operation of the machine than any of the adults.]
Hayley took a liking to Thomas, and in June 1792 took him back to Eartham as a companion and tutor for his son, Thomas Alphonso, aged 11, as well as acting as secretary to Hayley.
Hayley lived in what is now Great Ballard School, where he entertained poets and artists; as well as Cowper and his invalid wife, other visitors included George Romney, the portrait painter, Charlotte Smith, the novelist, James Hurdis, the poet, and Edward Gibbon, the historian.
Thomas often accompanied Hayley on visits to Petworth House, where he first met the 3rd Earl of Egremont and his many children, including 5-year old George, his eldest son by his mistress, Elizabeth Ilive.
By the summer of 1794, Thomas Alphonso had left the house at Eartham to become articled to John Flaxman, the sculptor, leaving Thomas as Hayley’s secretary. With little to keep him busy at Eartham, Thomas was seconded to John Holroyd, Baron Sheffield, who was writing a memoir of Edward Gibbon, the author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Thomas remained at Sheffield Park until the following summer, when he returned to Eartham, where he was re-united with George Wyndham, now Hayley’s pupil. Thomas Alphonso was also back at Eartham, where he was seriously ill with tuberculosis of the spine (from which he would die in May 1800, aged 19).
In view of his son’s ill-health, Hayley sent George Wyndham back to Petworth House in the summer of 1797. George, now aged 10, had briefly attended school at Midhurst, where he had been very unhappy, and refused to go back there. The Earl of Egremont searched for a tutor for George and his younger brother, Henry, when Hayley recommended Thomas Sockett, now aged 19, thus starting of a long relationship between Thomas and the Wyndham family.
By June 1806, George and Henry had both joined the army at 16, leaving only their youngest brother, Charles, aged 10, as Thomas’s pupil. In late June, Lord Egremont suggested to Thomas that he should take holy orders, with a view to becoming the rector at Petworth, when that became available on the death of the incumbent, Revd. Charles Dunster, then aged 56.
In order to be ordained, it was necessary for Thomas to obtain a degree from Oxford University. In July, he went to Exeter College, Oxford to meet the Rector of the college who agreed to admit him, without requiring to stay at the university full time; he was matriculated on 14 July 1806. Thomas realised that he had never been baptised into the Church of England, and was hastily baptised at East Horsley on 14 August “according to the directions of his Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury“.
It appears that Thomas only spent a few months each year at Oxford and it was not until 1811 that he graduated as Bachelor of Arts.
In the meantime, on 21 March 1808, he had been ordained as a deacon at the Chapel Royal at Westminster Abbey by the Bishop of Winchester, Brownlow North.
On 27 July 1810, aged 32, he married 25-year old Sarah Gray in her parish of St Margaret’s, Westminster; she was the daughter of a bank agent. Their first child, George, was born at Petworth the following May, with two daughters, Frances and Caroline, in the next 2½ years. Sadly, Sarah died in childbirth in December 1814, aged 29.
Now that he was married and had obtained his degree, the next step was to find a parish. The Earl of Egremont had estates across the country, and the right to appoint the parish priest. When a vacancy arose in the tiny village of North Scarle in Lincolnshire, in May 1811, Egremont offered this to Thomas. Although he was happy to take the income from the parish, he was reluctant to move to Lincolnshire. He remained as rector for the rest of his life, but rarely visited the village, and appointed at least 11 curates over the next 48 years.
A month later, Thomas was appointed as curate at Northchapel. Here the situation was reversed, with Revd Colin Milne, who had been rector since 1770, but preferred to stay in Deptford, in south-east London. Following the departure of the previous curate, Thomas took on the position on a salary of £50 p.a. and moved in to the rectory with his wife and infant son.
On 24 June 1814, Thomas Sockett was present at the visit by the victorious heads of state to Petworth House. In the painting by Thomas Phillips, “The Allied Sovereigns at Petworth”, Thomas can be seen third from the far right.
Following the death of his first wife, Thomas relinquished the curacy at Northchapel and in April 1815, was appointed as rector at Duncton, where the annual income from tithes was £160. At that time, St Mary’s church was at Manor Farm, to the south of the village.
On 21 March 1816, Thomas married his second wife, Sarah Herington from Kirdford, whose father was a tenant farmer of the Earl. Both Thomas and Sarah were aged 38 at the time of their marriage; the couple had two children, Charlotte born the following January, and Henry, born in June 1818.
The following month, Thomas was installed as rector of Petworth, following the death of the previous incumbent, Charles Dunster. He was to retain the three rectories until his death in 1859. In 1840, it is estimated that his total income from the three parishes was in the region of £1700.
At Petworth, he employed a curate to look after the parish, but at Duncton, he took the church services himself, although he and his family took up residence in the rectory at Petworth. Shortly after moving in, he spent £1200 on repairs and improvements to the rectory. Unfortunately, in February 1819, during a heavy storm, a large part of the roof and walls collapsed, costing over £1800 to repair, at Sockett’s expense.
Thomas Sockett died at home in Petworth on 17 March 1859, aged 81: his death certificate records the causes of death as “old age and paralysis”. His funeral was held at St Mary the Virgin Church, Petworth, with his curate, Revd. William Godden officiating, assisted by several local clergymen. After the church service, the congregation proceeded to Barton Lane cemetery, where he was buried.
By the time of his death, it would appear that he and his second wife, Sarah, had separated. She was now living at Sutton Rectory (5 miles south of Petworth), the home of her son, [Revd.] Henry Sockett, and did not attend the funeral. She survived her husband by 12 years, and died shortly after her 94th birthday in February 1871.