Future Publications

The Letters of Thomas Carew

Thomas Carew (1703-1766), a man once described by Horace Walpole as ‘a crazy zealot, who believed himself possessed by the devil, till he was cured by his apothecary’s assuring him that he had met the devil upon the stairs coming from him’. The majority of the letters transcribed here are those written to Thomas by members of his family, his local acquaintances, his men of business and the rector of Crowcombe, Henry Lockett (c.1705-1779), who seems to have acted as his unofficial estate agent for many years.

His interests lay in his own neighbourhood: the administration of local justice and the poor law, the merits or otherwise of the introduction of turnpike roads, his involvement in the battle against smuggling in Minehead, his support of Crowcombe’s charity school and his wider charitable concerns, the affairs of his family, friends and neighbours, and the management of his financial assets and estates. He was a man of intellect, interested in the history of the origins of the House of Commons and in that of his own county. His volume An Historical Account of the Rights of Elections was republished in 1783. He possessed an extensive library and a collection of paintings that included works by Rembrandt, Kneller, Lely, Poussin, Van Dyke and Claude.

Carew’s management of all things financial cannot be considered a success. Some of the difficulties he faced, such as the failure of his rental income to keep up with inflation, were beyond his control and other nearby Somerset landowners faced the same problem.

We hope you enjoy this account of a Somerset man whose lasting monument is a house that he had built for himself and his new bride, Crowcombe Court, which stands today as ‘the finest house of its date in Somerset south of the Bath area’. In this, at least, he was a man of vision and taste and as such would have wanted to be remembered. The letters brought to light in this volume reflect his colourful life.