John Nichols Thom

Who was John Nichols Thom?

John Nichols Tom, was a Cornish wine-merchant and maltster who re-invented himself as Sir William Courtenay, stood for parliament in Canterbury, was convicted of perjury in a smuggling case, spent three years in the Kent County Lunatic Asylum, and, following his release, gathered a small band of followers and paraded in the Kent countryside. He, along with several of his followers, was killed in a confrontation with soldiers in Bossenden Wood, in what has sometimes been called the last battle to be fought on English soil.