Dr Divinity Thomas Good

  General Notes:

Thomas was a Fellow of Baliol College, Oxford. Rector of St Alkmunds, Shrewsbury, whence he was driven away by Cromwells soldiers. During the civil wars he held the living of Choreley in Shropshire and at the restoration he was made Doctor of Divinity as a sufferer of the King's causes and Canon residentiary of Hereford by Charles 11 in 1660 who also gave him the living of Winstanstow Salop. He died at Hereford in April 1678 and was buried in the Cathedral.
Further information.
Good, Thomas (1609-10-1678), college head, was born in Worcestershire, supposedly of "plebeian" stock, and was admitted a king's scholar at the Kings School, Worcester, in 1622, during the headship of Henry Bright (1562-1627), a former fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and one of the most prominent schoolmasters of his day. By 1625 Good was a commoner at Balliol; he became a scholar in 1627, but did not matriculate (aged eighteen) until some months before graduating BA in 1628. He was elected to a Balliol fellowship in 1629, proceeded MA in 1631 and BD in 1639, and was an active tutor until early in the civil war. Good then withdrew to Shropshire. Ejected from St Alkmunds, Shrewsbury, on the fall of that town to parliament in 1645, he acquired the rectory of Culmington in 1648 but was soon displaced. He survived as an absentee fellow of Balliol, however, and in 1647 the Oxford parliamentary visitors thought him sound enough to be one of their delegates. For The next decade he lived quietly as a country minister, probably mostly at Chorley, Shropshire.
In 1653, the year in which he was granted the vicarage of Bishop's Castle, Good joined with his friend Richard Baxter in efforts to unify the west midland clergy. Briefly from 1656 rector of Little Wittenham, Berkshire. At restoration he was made a DD and a canon residentiary of Hereford (with the bishop's prebend); he also was given dispensation to hold his fellowship of Balliol in 1658, but he still followed college affairs. Financial affairs arising from the civil war and the great fire of London, compounded by corrupt practices afterwards, had reduced the college to a parlous state of indebtedness by 1760. Good reported on all this to the college's visitor, William Fuller, bishop of Lincoln, who too charge, and when the mastership fell vacant on the death of Henry Savage in 1672, Good was installed. Despite obstructive and factious fellows Good saved Balliol from collapse by fund-raising and firm government. His boldest move, sacrificing principal to necessity, was to sell a Balliol place in perpetuity to Blundell's School, Tiverton, for £600.
Good also followed Savage in the rectory of Bladon, Oxfordshire, which he held until death in plurality of Winstantow, adding the vicarage of Diddlebury in 1676. He had one short book published - Firmianus and Dubitantius (1674), a laboured, fictional dialogue on controversial topics. This work is rich in aphorism, but its theses were scornfully demolished by Baxter. A Brief English Tract of Logick (1677), a pamphlet including a list of maxims in Good's style, was ascribed to Good by Anthony Wood.
Good died at Hereford on 9 April 1678. His burial next day is recorded in the register of the cathedral parish, but there is no memorial. No wife, child, or siblings is mentioned in his will, drawn up on 4 February 1677, which made numerous modest bequests, to kinfolk, godchildren, and Balliol College.
The foregoing was written by Dr John Jones,Balliol College.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Degree, 1630. Fellow of Balliol College

• Degree B.A, 1628. Balliol College

• Degree M.A, 1631. Balliol College

• Degree B.D, 1639. Balliol College