Thomas Croome
Thomas Croome was an attorney of Stroud, Gloucestershire, who bought the Manor of Painswick. An attorney was a lawyer who handled deeds, property and cases in the courts, the work later done by solicitors. He was about seventy when he was buried in 1839, so he was born about 1769. His marriage allegation of 1801 gives his age as 26, which would put his birth nearer 1775.
He came from a Stroud family. His will names a brother, James Croome, and a nephew, John Croome Mills. The nephew was the son of his sister Esther. She married John Mills, a grocer of Stroud, at Stroud on 27 April 1794. Both were described as 23 in their allegation. John Croome Mills later became a mustard manufacturer in Stroud. A James Croome of Stroud, clothier, who married Elizabeth Cook by licence in 1804, was probably the brother. Thomas's parents are not known. An older James Croome of Stroud, a maltster, made his will in 1786 and named as executor "the younger James Croome", his nephew. He was probably Thomas's uncle.
On 1 July 1801 Thomas swore the allegation for a licence to marry Elizabeth Clutterbuck of Randwick. An allegation was the sworn statement made to obtain a licence to marry without banns. It reads: "Thomas Croome, of Stroud, gentleman, batchelor, aged 26, and Elizabeth Clutterbuck of Randwick, spinster, aged 26". It was sworn before Thomas Stock, surrogate. They married at Randwick on 7 July 1801. The witnesses were Mary Clutterbuck, Edward Sheppard and George Harmer. Elizabeth was the youngest daughter of Samuel Clutterbuck, a gentleman of Cainscross. Their daughter Elizabeth was christened at Randwick in December 1802, and their son Thomas Clutterbuck Croome in May 1807.
In 1803 he wrote out The Customs of the Manor of Painswick. The customs of a manor were the rules by which its tenants held their land: what they paid, how holdings passed at a death, and what the lord could claim. The next year he took a conveyance of the manor itself from the Jerningham family. As lord of the manor he held its court and received the dues its tenants owed.
His business papers survive from 1807 to 1839, with promissory notes from 1799 to 1831. In 1810 he was a party to the deed of Badbrook House, a fulling mill in Stroud. A fulling mill was where woollen cloth was beaten in water to thicken and clean it. Later he practised with his son as Croome and Son, solicitors, and their accounts survive for 1828 to 1834.
He lived at the Gravel Pits in Randwick, the house his father-in-law had left to Elizabeth and her sister Mary. His will begins "Thomas Croome of the Gravel Pits in the Parish of Randwick in the County of Gloucester, Gentleman". It left the Manor of Painswick and his lands in Painswick and Stroud to "my Son Thomas Clutterbuck Croome". His brother James and his nephew John Croome Mills had nineteen guineas each. His household goods, plate, linen, wines, books and office furniture went, as far as the writing can be read, to Mary Clutterbuck, for her care of him. A codicil of November 1838 was witnessed by Mary Clutterbuck and Elizabeth Clutterbuck. The will names no wife, so Elizabeth had probably died before him.
He was buried at St Matthew's, Cainscross, on 30 March 1839, aged 70. His son proved the will, with three codicils, on 20 April 1839 as "Thomas Clutterbuck Croome Esquire the Son and sole Executor". By 1843 the son was Lord of the Manor of Painswick.
Sources
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Cite: Heirology, "Thomas Croome (1769-1839)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/thomas-croome-1769-1839-091400.