Thomas Jones Prout
(1823-1909), Divine and college constitution reformerSitter in 1 portrait
Thomas Prout was a Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford, from 1842, a Tutor from 1851 to 1861 and a Censor from 1857 to 1861. He virtually led the campaign to reform the college constitution in the 1850s and 60s, and was known as 'the man who slew the Canons'. From 1857 to 1891, he was Vicar of Binsey, on the western border of Oxford. He lived at Christ Church for sixty-seven years. Prout, who was renowned for falling asleep in meetings, may have been the model for the Dormouse in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).
by Lewis Carroll
albumen print, June 1857
NPG P7(7)
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Jean Hill
20 August 2016, 03:28
Thomas Jones Prout, born 1823, Edinburgh, Scotland, died 23 October, 1909, Oxford, was the son of William Prout (1785 - 1850), a Medical Doctor, and Agnes Prout (nee Adam) who married on 22 September,1814. Thomas had a number of siblings: John William Prout, born 1817, died 1881, Elizabeth Prout, born 1826, died 1918, Agnes Prout, born 1828, who died in 1878.