Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stackhouse, Thomas (1756-1836)
STACKHOUSE, THOMAS (1756–1836), antiquary and theologian, son of Daniel Stackhouse, who married, at Cockermouth, in 1755, Margaret Morland, and grandson of Thomas Stackhouse (1677?–1752) [q. v.], vicar of Benham, was born at Cockermouth on 27 Sept. 1756. He was educated by his uncle, Thomas Stackhouse the younger, and was himself engaged in tuition at Liverpool. He is said to have sculptured the figure of painting over the Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall, London. His hobby lay in investigating the remains of the early inhabitants of Britain, and he published two works on that subject. After walking ‘considerably above a hundred miles … among the barrows’ near Weymouth and Dorchester, he wrote ‘Illustration of the Tumuli, or Ancient Barrows’ (1806), which was dedicated to William George Maton, M.D. [q. v.], His second work, the result of visits to the earthworks and remains in the southern counties, ranging from Tunbridge Wells to Bath, was ‘Two Lectures on the Remains of Ancient Pagan Britain’ (1833), of which seventy-five copies were struck off for private distribution. He also published ‘Views of Remarkable Druidical Rocks near Todmorton,’ presumably Todmorden, near Rochdale. Stackhouse joined the Society of Friends, and his speech at the eleventh annual meeting of the Peace Society is reported in the ‘Herald of Peace’ (vol. vi. 1827). He died at Chapel Road, Birdcage Fields, St. John's parish, Hackney, on 29 Jan. 1836, and was buried, with his wife, at Park Street burial-ground, Stoke Newington, on 4 Feb. His wife Ruth, daughter of John and Ruth Fell of Blennerhasset, Cumberland, whom he married at Liverpool on 18 Dec. 1783, died at Stamford Hill on 16 Feb. 1833, aged 76. They had issue three sons and two daughters.
Other works by Stackhouse were: 1. ‘A New Essay on Punctuation,’ 1800, 3rd edit. 1814. 2. ‘An Appendix and Key to the Essay on Punctuation,’ 1800. 3. ‘The Rationale of the Globes,’ 1805. 4. ‘Horne Tooke revived; or an Explanation of the Particles of and for,’ 1813. 5. ‘Sacred Genealogy; or the Ancestry of Messiah’ (anon.), 1822. 6. ‘Thoughts on Infidelity,’ 1823. 7. ‘Biblical Researches, with an Explanation of Daniel's Seventy Weeks,’ 1827. 8. ‘Astronomical Discourses for Schools and Families,’ 1831. 9. ‘The Eclipsareon: a Diagram of the Times in which Eclipses may happen in any given Year.’ 10. ‘The Zodiacal Chart.’ 11. ‘Key to the Egyptian Hieroglyphic Alphabet.’ Stackhouse left in manuscript ‘Historical, Doctrinal, and Obituary Notices of the Society of Friends.’
[Stackhouse's Works; Smith's Cat. of Friends Books, ii. 619–20; private information.]