Thomas Tomkinson

Who was Thomas Tomkinson?

Thomas Tomkinson was an English Muggletonian writer born at Ilam, near Dovedale, in Staffordshire. His parents, Richard and Ann, farmed at Sladehouse and Thomas took over the business as a yeoman farmer even while his father was alive. His faith was initially Presbyterian but in 1661 he read a book by Laurence Clarkson and became attracted to Muggletonianism. Earlier, in February 1652, he had had a revelatory experience similar to the one Lodowicke Muggleton reported in 1650 but without any experience of the direct voice of God which had come to John Reeve and which was the foundation experience of Muggletonianism. Since John Reeve died in 1658, these dates mean that Tomkinson was one of the first prominent Muggletonian personalities not to have known Reeve personally.