Thomas Wilson (20 December 1663 – 7 March 1755) was Bishop of Sodor and Man between 1697 and 1755.
He was born in Burton in the Wirral, Cheshire, in December 1663. Having studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, he was ordained a priest in 1689. In 1692 the Lord of Mann, William Stanley, 9th Earl of Derby, appointed him personal chaplain and tutor to the earl's son. Five years later, at Lord Derby's urging, Wilson accepted promotion to the vacant bishopric of Sodor and Man.
When he came to the Isle of Man, he found the buildings of the diocese in a ruinous condition. The building of new churches was one of his first acts, and he eventually rebuilt most of the churches of the diocese along with establishing public libraries. He oversaw the passing in the Tynwald of the Act of Settlement 1704 that provided tenants with rights to sell and pass on their land, subject only to continued fixed rents and alienation fees. Wilson worked to restore ecclesiastical discipline on the Island, although he clashed with civil authorities partly because of the reduction of revenue from Wilson mitigating fines in the spiritual court. He met James Oglethorpe in London and because of that meeting became interested in foreign missions. He was an early advocate of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
Bishop Wilson's relations with the people of the Isle of Man were marked by mutual affection and esteem. His personal piety expressed itself in energetic charitable activity and he often intervened to shield his flock from the demands of the state authorities. He declined preferment to the much wealthier See of Exeter. When he died on 7 March 1755 at the age of 91, it is said that his funeral was attended by nearly the whole adult population of the Isle of Man.
Early life (1663–87)
Wilson was the sixth of seven children and fifth son of Nathaniel Wilson (died 29 May 1702) and Alice Wilson née Browne (died 16 August 1708). He was born at Burton, Cheshire on 20 December 1663. According to Wilson's biographer John Keble, both sides of his family had been Burton residents for many centuries. Much of Wilson's childhood was spent at the parsonage in Winwick, Lancashire, where his paternal half-uncle, Richard Sherlock was rector; Sherlock supervised Wilson's training. It was through Sherlock that the earliest connection to the Isle of Man can be made, insofar as he was chaplain to the son of the 7th Earl of Derby and Lord of Mann, amongst whose ambitions were to restore order to the church in the Isle of Man after a breakdown in the seventeenth century.
Wilson was tutored at The King's School, Chester and entered Trinity College, Dublin as a sizar on 29 May 1682. His tutor was John Barton, afterwards dean of Ardagh. Jonathan Swift entered in the previous month, and other contemporaries included Peter Browne and Edward Chandler. He was elected scholar on 4 June 1683. In February 1686 he graduated with a B.A.. The influence of Archdeacon Michael Heweton (died 1709), a prebendary of St Patrick's Cathedral, turned his thoughts from medicine to the church. He was ordained deacon before attaining the canonical age by William Moreton, bishop of Kildare on 29 June 1686 in Kildare Cathedral on the day of its consecration.
He left Ireland on 10 February 1687 to become curate to his uncle Sherlock in the chapelry of Newchurch Kenyon at the parish of Winwick. He was ordained priest by Nicholas Stratford on 20 October 1689 and remained in charge of Newchurch with a salary of £30 until the end of August 1692. He was then appointed domestic chaplain to William Stanley, 9th Earl of Derby. Early in 1693, he was appointed master of the almshouse at Lathom, yielding £20 more. At Easter he made a vow to set apart a fifth of his small income for charity, especially for the poor. Wilson gave up his parish duties to concentrate on the education of the Earl's heir apparent, continuing in that role for five years. Keble suggests that the Stanley family approved of Wilson's acceptance of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Stowall suggests that Wilson became more highly valued by the 9th Earl after giving him strong counsel against his indebtedness and reminding him of the potential for financial crisis arising out of any change in government.
In June 1693 he was offered by Lord Derby the valuable rectory of Badsworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, but refused it, having made a resolution against non-residence. He received his M.A. in 1696. On 27 October 1698 he was married at Winwick to Mary (16 July 1674 – 7 March 1705), daughter of Thomas Patten. The couple had four children, of whom only Thomas survived to adulthood and became prebendary of Westminster and rector of St Stephen Walbrook.
Preferment
On 27 November 1696 Lord Derby offered him the bishopric of Sodor and Man, vacant since the death of Baptist Levinz, and insisted on his taking it. Derby had previously offered the position to Wilson who had "modestly declined". The background to the insistent offer was a complaint made to William III by the Archbishop of York, John Sharp about the length of the vacancy; the previous and largely absentee incumbent Baptist Levinz had died in 1693.. William gave an ultimatum to Derby of an immediate nomination, or else an imposition at the King's will. William assented to Wilson's elevation on 25 December 1697 and ordered the Archbishop of York to consecrate Wilson as bishop.. On 10 January 1697 he was created LL.D. by Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury (a so-called Lambeth degree). On 16 January 1697, he was consecrated bishop at the Savoy Chapel, London. On 28 January the rectory of Badsworth was again offered to him in commendam, and again refused, though the see of Man was worth no more than £300 a year. His first business was to recover the arrears of royal bounty (an annuity of £100, granted 1675).
Work in the Isle of Man (1697–1749)
On 6 April he landed at Derbyhaven in the Isle of Man. He was installed on 11 April 1697 in the ruins of St German's Cathedral, within Peel Castle at Peel. At once he took up his residence at Bishopscourt, Kirk Michael, which he found also in a ruinous condition, with only a tower and chapel standing. Wilson set about rebuilding the greater part of it, at a cost of £1,400, of which all but £200 came from his own pocket. He soon became 'a very energetic planter' of fruit and forest trees, turning 'the bare slopes' into 'a richly wooded glen'. He was a zealous farmer and miller, doing much by his example to develop the resources of the Island. For some time he was the only physician in the Island. He set up a drug-shop, giving advice and medicine to the poor for free.
He had been on the Island for less than two months when he had before him the petition of Christopher Hampton of Kirk Braddan, whose wife had been condemned to seven years' penal servitude for lamb stealing, and who asked the bishop's licence for a second marriage in consideration of his "motherless children." On 26 May 1698, Wilson gave him "liberty to make such a choice as may be most for your support and comfort." Yet his views of marriage were usually strict; marriage with a deceased wife's sister he regarded as incest.Under English law, this was the case until the passage of the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907.
The building of new churches (beginning with the Castletown chapel, 1698) was one of his earliest cares and, in 1699, he took up the concept of parochial libraries devised by his friend Thomas Bray and began the establishment of such libraries in his diocese. This led to provision in the Manx language for the needs of his people. The printing of prayers for the poor families is projected in a memorandum of Whit-Sunday 1699, but was not carried out until 30 May 1707, the date of issue of his Principles and Duties of Christianity ... in English and Manks, with short and plain directions and prayers, 1707. This was the first book published in Manx, and is often styled the Manx Catechism. It was followed in 1733, by A Further Instruction and A Short and Plain Instruction for the Lord's Supper. The Gospel of St. Matthew was translated, with the help of his vicars-general in 1722 and published in 1748 under the sponsorship of his successor as bishop, Mark Hildesley . The remaining Gospels and the Acts were also translated into Manx under his supervision, but not published. He freely issued occasional orders for special services, with new prayers, the Act of Uniformity 1662 not specifying the Isle of Man. A public library was established by Wilson at Castletown in 1706 and, from that year, by help of the trustees of the "academic fund" and by benefactions from Lady Elizabeth. He did much to increase the efficiency of the grammar schools and parish schools in the Island. He was created DD at Oxford on 3 April 1707 and incorporated at Cambridge on 11 June. In 1724 he founded, and in 1732 endowed, a school at Burton, his birthplace.
Land tenancy issues Wilson was centrally involved in another needed improvement to the Island other than the construction of libraries and chapels and the dissemination of contemporary farming methods. Land tenure issues were a major source of instability for tenants on the Island, which had not yet made a clean break from more ancient feudal traditions. Attempts by previous earls of Derby to assert landlord rights had unsettled the community. Wilson was charged by the 9th earl with gathering proposals for change from tenants, work which led to fruition under the 10th earl, with the passing in the Tynwald of the Act of Settlement 1704. This was seen by islanders as their Magna Carta. The act provided tenants with rights to sell and pass on their land, subject only to continued fixed rents and alienation fees being paid to the Stanley family.
Restoration of ecclesiastical discipline The restoration of ecclesiastical discipline on the Island was a serious task for Wilson. Scandals, frequently involving the morals of the clergy, gave him trouble. The "spiritual statutes" of the Island (valid, where not superseded by the Anglican canons of 1603) were of native growth, and often uncouth in their provisions. Without attempting to disturb these, with the single exception of abolishing commutation of penance by fine, Wilson drew a set of ten Ecclesiastical Constitutions which were subscribed by the clergy in a convocation at Bishopscourt on 3 February 1704 and ratified by the governor of the Isle of Man and council the next day. These were then confirmed by James Stanley, 10th Earl of Derby, and publicly proclaimed on the Tynwald Hill on 6 June. Of these constitutions it was said by Peter King, 1st Baron King, that "if the ancient discipline of the church were lost, it might be found in all its purity in the Isle of Man".
Civil and ecclesiastical conflict