Thomas Heywood

Thomas Heywood (1797–1866) was an English antiquarian. He was closely involved in the Chetham Society and its publications.

Early life The son of Nathaniel Heywood (died 1815) of Heywood's Bank and his wife Anne Percival, daughter of Thomas Percival, and younger brother of Benjamin Heywood, he was born in Manchester on 3 September 1797; James Heywood was his younger brother. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School. He graduated B.A. from Glasgow University in 1815.

Heywood was from 1818 a partner in Heywood's Bank, called the Manchester Bank and, from 1795, Heywood Brothers & Co., with his father's surviving brother Benjamin Arthur Heywood (died 1828), Benjamin, and (from 1820) Richard Heywood, another brother. He served the office of boroughreeve of Salford in 1826. Heywood went there to live, and was high sheriff of Herefordshire in 1840.

Works Heywood was an early member of the council of the Chetham Society, and edited the following of its publications: The Diary of the Rev. Henry Newcome, 1849. Cardinal Allen's Defence of Sir William Stanley's Surrender of Deventer, 1851. On the South Lancashire Dialect, 1862. Letter from Sir John Seton, dated 1643, 1862.

For the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire he wrote a notice of the family of Percival of Allerton, Lancashire (Trans. vol. i.), and a description of an old Chester document (vol. v.). Mary Elizabeth Sumner, founder of the Mothers' Union was their daughter. She married George Henry Sumner. They had another daughter, Margaret, who married her first cousin Sir Thomas Percival Heywood, 2nd Baronet, and a son Thomas (1826–1915), whose first wife was Mary Emily Beresford, daughter of Marcus Beresford. Margaret became a Catholic convert.