TC-TSS, 17 Feb. MS: John Spedding. Hitherto unpbd. Thomas Story Spedding (1800–70), Cumberland landowner, elder brother of James Spedding. After a promising career at Cambridge, where he obtained a first in civil law, LL.B., 1825, and at the bar, he decided to devote his life to local interests in Cumberland. Fellow of Trinity Hall, 1825–33; admitted to the Inner Temple, 1856. His first wife, Phillis Jane, da. of the Ven. Robert Hurrell Froude, d. June 1835. He was to marry, 4 April 1839, Frances Emily, da. of the Ven. Archdeacon John Headlam, of Gilmonby Hall, Yorks.

1. In his Journal, 17 Feb., TC noted that “Spedding (the elder, from Cumberland, a man whom I like) had called,” and, 19 Feb., that Thomas and James called “while tea went on,” on the 18th: “Staid tell eleven o'clock; very pleasant men, especially the elder, a Cumberland scholar and squire whom I hope to see in the North Country. Told me of Hartley Coleridge, whom they esteemed a man of real genius; of his falling out of one high possibility down thro' another lower and then again lower till he had now become a poor denizen of taprooms in the village of Ambleside.” For James Spedding (1808–81), see 8:196. The family home was at Mirehouse, between Skiddaw (to the E) and the lake of Bassenthwaite (to the W), where Thomas lived with his parents, John (1770–1851) and Sarah (d. 1842).