A biographical memoir of the late Dr. Joseph Thackeray, of Bedford.

Date:
[1832?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A biographical memoir of the late Dr. Joseph Thackeray, of Bedford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    what the antecedent proposition is intended to convey. The uses of biography are to preserve a memorial of the dead,—to furnish an example to the living; and its ends are attained only when both these purposes are adequately fulfilled. On both these grounds the life about to be recorded in the following brief memoir, merits the attention of survivors. A career displaying so much moral worth, so much practical virtue, de¬ serves to be held in remembrance on its own account, as exhibiting human nature in its more amiable portraiture, while it presents an example which every right feeling, every dictate of duty, should incline us to emulate. Dr. Joseph Thackeray, whose premature fate it is our melancholy office to record, departed this life at Bedford, on the 5th July, 1832, in the 49th year of his age, the victim of a bilious fever, and after an illness of ten days. He was born at Cambridge, on the 27th March, 1784, being the 16tli child of Thos. Thackeray, an eminent medical practitioner of that town. Ere we proceed to comemorate the useful and exemplary life of the son, a passing tribute should he paid to the memory of the venerable and excellent parent. Mr. Thackeray was in extensive practice, pursued nearly to the time of his death, which took place at the advanced age of 72. He had a large family, on whom the opulence derived from his profession, with the advantage of locality, enabled him to bestow the in¬ estimable benefit of liberal education. With a clear perception of the sources of moral worth and human happiness, he deemed mental cultivation better than riches, and secured for his children that good which was independent of casualty, and sure to cling by them under all the reverses of fortune. The wisdom of this preference was amply attested by the prosperous and most respectable career of all his sons, of whom, seven, together with three daughters, survived him. Thomas