Thomas Secker (1693-1768) attended a Dissenting Academy in Tewkesbury, and studied medicine in London and Paris and received his degree from Leiden University. He then entered Exeter College, Oxford, and was ordained into the Church of England, and followed a meteoric career in the church. In 1724 he became of rector of Houghton-le-Spring and later a Canon of Durham Cathedral. He became Rector of St James’s Westminster in 1733, Bishop of Bristol in 1735, Bishop of Oxford in 1737 and Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1750. On 21st April 1858, he was installed as Archbishop of Canterbury. He died on 3rd August 1768 in Lambeth palace, at the age of seventy-four. Secker married Catherine Benson in 1720, and the newly-wed couple invited the recently-widowed Mrs Talbot and her daughter Catherine Talbot to live with them, which they continued to do until the end of his life.