Thoms, WILLIAM JOHN

Thoms, WILLIAM JOHN, a genial and accomplished antiquary and bibliographer, was born in Westminster, 16th November 1803, and began life as a clerk in the Chelsea Hospital. After twenty years of service there he was attached as a clerk to the House of Lords, and was appointed its deputy-librarian in 1863, a post which he resigned from old age in 1882. He died in London, August 15, 1885. Thoms was elected F.S.A. in 1838, was secretary of the Camden Society from 1838 till 1873, founder of Notes and Queries (1849), and its editor down to 1872. His happiness in hitting on names is illustrated in the name and motto of this famous little paper, and in the name supplied (Athenæum, August 1846) to the new subject of study, 'folklore.' His published writings by no means suggest the range of the vast stores of out-of-the-way knowledge which he possessed and was ever ready to communicate to others. His books include A Collection of Early Prose Romanees (3 vols. 1828; enlarged ed. 1858); Lays and Legends of Various Nations (4 vols. 1834); Book of the Court (1838); Anecdotes and Traditions illustrative of Early English History and Literature (Camden Soc. 1838); Three Notelets on Shakespeare (1864); Hannah Lightfoot, Queen Charlotte, and Chevalier D'Eon (1867); Human Longevity: its Faets and its Fictions (1873); besides a translation of Worsaae's Primeval Antiquities of Denmark (1849), and an edition of Stow's Survey of London (1875).