Rev. Michael Tyson (1740-1780) and trouble at Lambourne

The advowson of Lambourne was purchased by the incumbent, Dr Thomas Tooke, for £400 in 1712. He died in 1721 and bequeathed it to his brother and his heirs. The will also stipulated that, 50 years after his death, the advowson should pass to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The last heir to benefit from the family inheritance was Tooke’s nephew, Robert Tooke, who died in 1776, whereupon Corpus Christi College considered that it was entitled to nominate his successor. The college chose its bursar, Michael Tyson, but this started a troublesome lawsuit brought by the sister of the last rector who claimed that the right was hers. A suit in Chancery ruled in favour of the college, but the Tooke family threatened a second lawsuit. The unfortunate Tyson, tired of the legal conflict and wishing to marry ‘a most agreeable woman to whom he had been engaged for 10 years’, entered into a composition with the disputants requiring the payment of ‘a good round sum of money’, and an undertaking not to take possession of the rectory house until Christmas 1778. Tyson, who had been married in July of that year, was in lodgings in Chigwell.

Tyson reached his agreement without the knowledge of the college who, understandably, were reluctant to reimburse him for the ‘good, round sum of money’ that he had paid. However, on Tyson’s premature death of a ‘putrid fever’ on 3 May 1780, the college relented and provisionally agreed to reimburse Tyson’s widow. However the Tooke relatives, when the college acted to nominate Tyson’s successor, threatened another lawsuit, and Corpus Christi withdrew their offer, doubtless anticipating further legal costs. But soon after, the Tookes decided (or perhaps were persuaded by the wise advice from their lawyer) to withdraw their claim. The college then reimbursed to his son the composition fee (some £60 or £70) that had been paid by Michael Tyson.

Tyson was a minor figure in the world of mid eighteenth century antiquaries, perhaps mainly connected to it through his friendship with Richard Gough whom he accompanied on a tour of northern England and Scotland in 1776. Gough had a high opinion of him – he attended his funeral and, in his revision of Camden’s Britannia, noted under the Lambourne entry ‘at the foot of the bishop’s tomb was laid, May 6th 1780, a friend to whose pencil and taste these sheets would have been much indebted, had he not been cut off in the early enjoyment of all his wishes’.

He wrote a few short antiquarian reports for the Gentleman’s Magazine and Archaeologia, but none relate to Essex – hardly surprising as he only lived in the county for two years. He was an accomplished botanist but it was his skill as an engraver, artist and book illustrator that led to Gough’s comment after his death. There is no monument to him in Lambourne church but his biographer leaves a vivid account of his appearance – he was of a ‘black swarthy complexion & adult habit of body & of a short squat composition but extremely well compacted.’