▶Date of birth:  24 March 1851        Place of birth: York

▶Father:   John Mann Nicholson    Mother:  Caroline Nicholson

▶Spouse(s): Georgiana Penelope Pile     Date(s) of marriage:   28 June 1875    Place(s) of marriage: Wesleyan Church, Sandymount, Dublin

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Wesleyan Methodist minister)

▶Lifestory: Thomas Ballans Nicholson came to Cheltenham as Subperintendent Minister of the district circuit towards the end of his career. He was the son of bookseller John Mann Nicholson JP, of York, and his wife Caroline (née Nicholson). He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, BA 1872, LLD 1874, DD 1879, and seemed initially destined for a career in the law.

Nicholson entered the Methodist Church of Ireland in 1871, and spent two years at the Methodist College, Belfast, as a tutor in classics, before working on the Dublin and Belfast circuits. In 1875 he married Georgiana Penelope, third daughter of Sir Thomas D. Pile Esq., of Sandymount, Dublin and former Lord Mayor of Dublin; they had seven daughters and three sons; in the same year he was ordained into the Irish Conference of the Wesleyan Methodists at Donegal Square Chapel, Belfast.

The couple remained in Belfast until Nicholson transferred to the British Conference in 1879 where his first ministership was at St Mary’s Wesleyan Chapel, Truro 1879-81, when the family lived in Sithney, Cornwall; an enthusiastic journalist noted that “Polruan’s new Wesleyan chapel owes £130, although it has raised £105 since its opening day. Rev. T. B. Nicholson gave the debt another wipe with his patent sermonic sponge on Sunday” (Cornishman).

Following the normal course with Methodist ministers, Nicholson was moved between stations every two to three years, and this itinerancy took him to the following places as minister: Liverpool (St John’s) 1882-4, Manchester (Radnor Street) 1885-7, Ealing and Acton 1889-90, Hammersmith (where he was appointed Superintendent Minister, as in the following two stations) 1891-3, Clapton 1894, London (Poplar) 1895-7, London (Sydenham, as Assistant; in 1901 he lived at 12 Vernon Road, Upper Norwood) 1900, Hastings 1901-3, where he was hailed as “a brilliant and scholarly man”; he had previously been assigned to Clifton, Bristol, but his allocation was changed), Birmingham (Sutton Park) 1904-6, Walsall (Wesley: the last two as an assistant).

Between 1910 and 1912 he was Superintendent Minister in Cheltenham, and lived his wife and two daughters at the Wesleyan Superintendent’s residence, 27 Clarence Square, Pittville. By 1916 he ministered at Ramsey on the Isle of Man, and in that year was allocated to Ramsgate in Kent.

Nicholson settled at 10 Talbot Road, Highgate after the Great War, where he continued to assist in Methodist duties. He died in 1925 at Edmonton in Essex, at the age of seventy-four. His estate at death was valued at just over £4,850.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Wallsall      Moved from Pittville to: Ramsey, Cambridgeshire

▶Date of death:   17 September 1925     Place of death:  Edmonton, Essex

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:  Cornishman 25 August 1881; Northern Whig 26 September 1925      ID: 11468

Contributor(s):  John Simpson