Thomas Nelson Community College In Va


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Thomas Nelson Community College In Va

Thomas Nelson Community College In Va

The name of Thomas Hooker is particularly significant in American history, and not just in Hartford, Connecticut, the city with which he is most closely connected. So why is his name found on a blue plaque on the wall of a school in a sleepy Leicestershire town, thousands of miles from the land where his fame was gained?

The town, which is little more than a large village, is Market Bosworth, which is a short distance from my own home. It has a long history, being most famous for giving its name to the 1485 battle in which English history changed forever when Henry Tudor defeated King Richard III. Market Bosworth was for many years the seat of the Dixie Family, and the Grammar School was founded in 1601 under the will of Sir Wolstan Dixie.

However, the wall on which the blue plaque can be seen dates from only 1828, which was when the school was rebuilt. The plaque reads:

“Thomas Hooker (1586-1647). Puritan Clergyman. Pupil of this School. Reputed Father of American Democracy.”

Thomas Hooker as a Puritan Clergyman

Thomas Hooker was born at Markfield, some ten miles from Market Bosworth, the son of a farmer. He would have been one of the first pupils of the new Dixie school, from where he proceeded to Cambridge, taking a BA degree in 1608. He was granted a fellowship, endowed by the Dixie family, and remained at Emmanuel College until 1618.

Emmanuel was a distinctly Puritan college, and Thomas Hooker became a clergyman with a very Puritan outlook, by which is meant a more extreme kind of Protestant who believed more in personal spiritual growth than adherence to Church dogma.

Hooker became rector of St George’s, Esher, Surrey. In 1621 he married Susannah Garbrand and they soon had two daughters, both of whom were eventually to become the wives of clergymen in America.