Thomas Osborne the Clockmaker was slain in Bolton on 4th July in 1665 and buried in St Peters, the Parish Church, on 5th July 1665.
Someone clearly not of the town the entry is marked as peregrinus, meaning traveller or pilgrim, and that he was slain, suggests a violent death. being buried a day later, suggests there are no family to mourn his demise.
The timing of his death may have coincided with the Black Death, the Great Plague, In 1665 a devastating epidemic struck this country killing thousands of people.
The parish register denoting the violent death of the Clockmaker, Thomas Osborne.
Who was Thomas and where was he from – a possible answer:
(Finch AA, Finch VJ & Finch AW (2004)
Thomas may have been the son of Humphrey Osbourn baptised at St Botolph, Aldgate, apprenticed in 1641 to his father, but the apprenticeship was rearranged in 1643 to William Saby on his father’s death. Thomas received his father’s tools in Humphrey’s will in 1643. Took on apprentice Robert Munday (1652), t/o in 1655 at which time he may have died.
Thomas’ father Humphery Osborne (1590-1643) was the son of Henry of Reading, Berkshire, he was apprenticed 1606 to John Norman via Blacksmiths Company, declared free in 1617. Maker of lantern clocks. Apprentices he had via Blacksmiths Company include Edward Geery (1628), Thomas Morer (1635), John Coles (1637).
Married first in 1621 to Alice Frey and second in 1630 to Katherine, widow of Stile at St Botolph Bishopsgate.
Son Thomas was apprenticed to him via Blacksmiths Company in 1641 but then rearranged 1643 for William Saby because his father had died. Humphrey Osborne was buried in 1643 at St Botolph’s Aldgate as “clockmaker in Houndsditch”, Humphrey’s Will is recorded in Alien Communities London.