Insolvent Debtor

The Revd. Richard Thomas, formerly of Stanford Rivers, near Chipping Ongar, in the County of Essex, clerk, curate for the parish of Stanford Rivers aforesaid, and also Chaplain to the Union House there; then in lodgings at No 3 Newcastle Street, Farrington Street, then in lodgings at no. 48, Holborn Hill, both in the City of London; afterwards in lodgings at Mr William Smith’s, of Hemswell, near Spittal, in the County of Lincolnshire, farmer, and late in lodgings at Mr George Brown’s, in Church Street, Gainsborough, in the County of Lincoln, grocer and shoemaker; during the whole of the above residences, clerk and incumbent of the parish church of Hemswell, aforesaid.

To be heard on the 19th November at Lincoln, at 10 o’clock in the forenoon.

Stanford Mercury 20th August, 1841

Insolvent Debtors’ Court, Lincoln
Nov. 19 – before Mr. Commissioner Harris.

The Rev. Rd. Thomas, Perpetual Curate of Hemswell, late of Chipping Ongar, Essex, and formerly Master of Lincoln Grammar School, applied to be discharged under the Act. The detaining creditor was Mr. Robert Williams, general dealer, 22 Old Bailey, London: his claim was £5.11s., with law costs amounting to £12.9s.4d. The Rev. Gentleman was opposed by Mr Pashley, spirit merchant, who contended that the insolvent had contracted debts at a time when he had no visible means or prospect of payment, and was supported by Mr Dowse. Mr Pashley added that, whilst the income of the insolvent was only £140 per annum, he was living at the rate of £160. The Commissioner said that was no fraud under the circumstances occasioning the insolvency. The amount of his debts was £240. The income of Hemswell had been £62 per annum, but had been reduced to £43. During the brief examination, it transpired that the principal part of the debts had been contracted in 1837, when the sickness of the insolvent’s wife, who died 12 months since, occasioned him greater expense than the pitiably small income would meet. The Commissioner said the case was an extremely hard one: the insolvent confessed that so great had been the poverty to which he had been reduced, that for the past six weeks he had been out on bail, he has not has a bed to lie upon. The Commissioner quoted the adage, “Poverty acquaints us with strange bedfellows,” and ordered the insolvent to be discharged,

Stanford Mercury 26th November, 1841