Bl. Thomas Ford

Feastday: May 28
Death: 1582

Martyr of England. He was born in Devon and educated at Oxford. There he converted and set out for Douai, France. Ordained a priest in 1573, he was sent back to England three years later. Thomas labored in Oxfordshire and Berckshire until his arrest. He was martyred on May 28 at Tyburn by being hanged, drawn, and quartered. He was a companion of St. Edmund Campion, and he died with Blesseds Robert Johnson and John Shert. Thomas was beatified in 1882.

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For other people named Thomas Ford, see Thomas Ford (disambiguation).

Thomas Ford (died 28 May 1582), a Devonshire native, was a Catholic martyr executed during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Life

He received a Masters of Arts at Trinity College, Oxford, on 24 July 1567, and became a fellow (although one source says president) there. In 1570, he left for the English College, Douai, and was one of its first three students to be ordained, receiving his orders March 1573 in Brussels.

Soon after receiving his Bachelor of Divinity in Douai, on 2 May 1576, he left for England. There he settled in Berkshire, becoming the chaplain of James Braybrooke at Sutton Courtenay, and then of Francis Yate and the Bridgettine nuns who were staying with Yate at Lyford Grange. On 17 July 1581, he was arrested by the government spy, George Eliot, along with Edmund Campion. On 22 July of that same year, he was put in the Tower, where he was tortured.

Ford was taken to court along with John Shert on 16 November with a faked charge of conspiracy. It is said he had conspired in places he had never been (Rome and Rheims), on days he had been in England. Both he and Shert were condemned on 21 November and, along with Robert Johnson, beheaded in May 1582. All three were beatified in 1886.

Notes

1. ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Blessed Thomas Ford" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
2. ^ Ford, David Nash (2010). "The Braybrooke Family of North & West Berkshire". Royal Berkshire History. Nash Ford Publishing. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
3. ^ Ford, David Nash (2011). "The Arrest of St. Edmund Campion". Royal Berkshire History. Nash Ford Publishing. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
4. ^ Challoner, Richard. Memoirs of Missionary Priests, Thomas Richardson & son, 1843, p. 98 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
5. ^ Camm, Bede. Lives of the English Martyrs Declared Blessed by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and 1895: Martyrs under Queen Elizabeth, Burns and Oates, 1905, p. 443 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.