31 March 2016

William Thornber, Blackpool

'The
Parish Church
of Saint John
(Grade II Listed)

The first Church of St. John was built on this site in
1821 as a Chapel of Ease to Bispham. It became a
Parish Church in 1860.
Its third curate was the Rev. William Thornber
(1829–45)
Blackpool's first historian.
His grave, and that of William H. Cocker another
Blackpool pioneer and its first Mayor, remain to the
east of the present church completed in 1878.
The original vicarage, completed in 1829, stood
across the street on a site behind the Empress
Buildings.

Kindly donated by
Blackpool and Flyde
Historical Society'

Among Thornber's writings are The History of Blackpool and Its Neighbourhood (1837), and, er, according to the British Library catalogue, Traditions of the Foreland of the Fylde. Elizabethan era. Penny Stone; or, a Tradition of the Spanish Armada (1886), which includes a biographical sketch of the author.

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