William Thornber, Blackpool

'The

Parish Church

of Saint John

(Grade II Listed)

The first Church of St. John was built on this site in

1821 as a Chapel of Ease to Bispham. It became a

Parish Church in 1860.

Its third curate was the Rev. William Thornber

(1829–45)

Blackpool's first historian.

His grave, and that of William H. Cocker another

Blackpool pioneer and its first Mayor, remain to the

east of the present church completed in 1878.

The original vicarage, completed in 1829, stood

across the street on a site behind the Empress

Buildings.

Kindly donated by

Blackpool and Flyde

Historical Society'

Among Thornber's writings are The History of Blackpool and Its Neighbourhood (1837), and, er, according to the British Library catalogue, Traditions of the Foreland of the Fylde. Elizabethan era. Penny Stone; or, a Tradition of the Spanish Armada (1886), which includes a biographical sketch of the author.