Thorpe, John

, son of the preceding, and also an antiquary, was born in 1714, and educated at Ludsdown in Kent, whence he removed to University-college, Oxford, where he took his masters degree iii 1738, and had an intention to have studied physic, but was diverted from the pursuit, and seems to have devoted his Life to the study of antiquities. He was elected F. S. A. in 1755, and published from his father’s Mss. and indeed what his father had in a great measure prepared, the “Registrum Roffense, or a collection of ancient records, &c. necessary for illustrating the ecclesiastical history and antiquities of the diocese and cathedral church of Rochester, &c. by John Thorpe, late of Rochester, M. D, F. R. S. and published by his son John Thorpe, esq. A. M. F. S. A.” Lond. 1769, fol. Pursuing the same plan, he published in 1788, in another sumptaous folio, the “Custumale Koffense, from the original Mss. in the archives of the dean and chapter of Rochester.”

In the “Philosophical Transactions” is a letter by Mr* Thorpe on “Chesnut Trees;” and he communicated to the “BibL Topographica Britannica,” “Illustrations of several antiquities in Kent, which have hitherto remained undescribed,” and several smaller articles, both in that publication and in the Gentleman’s Magazine.*

Mr. Thorpe married the daughter of Lawrence Holker, M. D. a physician at Milton near Gravesend; and after her death, 1789, to whom he had been united forty-two years, be married in 1790 Mrs. Holland, a lady who lived with him as housekeeper, and was the widow of an old college acquaintance. Soon after his first marriage, he purchased High-street-house, in Bexley, which after his first wife’s death he quitted fora house on Richmond-green, Surrey, and at last removed to Chippenham in Wiltshire, where he died Aug. 2, 1792, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was buried, according to his own desire, in the churchyard of Harden Huish, Wiltshire. Mr. Thorpe, by the report of one who knew him well, “was happy in a retentive memory, and could quote whole pages of hi*; favourite Pope, with the utmost facility. He was courteous,” but not courtly, in his manners hospitable, but not extravagant at his table skilful and curious in his garden intelligent and communicative in his library; social, elegant, and | informing in his general conversation, and on antiquarian topics almost an enthusiast." ¹