Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 8th Baronet
Despite receiving a solid Catholic education at institutions in northern France and Italy, Gascoigne would later renounce his religion to become a Foxite Whig Member of Parliament.
[4] He was educated alongside postulants at the English Benedictine school at St Gregory's Priory, Douai, and in 1762, as a result of concerns about his indolence and lack of application, was transferred with a private tutor to study philosophy at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, Paris.
In the aftermath, the Governor of Rome, Cardinal Eneo Silvio Piccolomini, assisted Gascoigne and Damer's escape and even obtained a papal pardon for them from Pope Clement XIII on 6 September 1765.
In 1771 he employed the agriculturalist and gardener John Kennedy, and together the pair experimented with the cultivation of a wide range of plants, though most importantly with the pioneering use of cabbages and carrots as fodder crops for livestock.
Beginning at Spa in the bishopric of Liège where he sought a cure for rheumatism, he was in Bordeaux by April 1775 where he met and befriended the Catholic English travel writer Henry Swinburne who proposed they visit Iberia together.
In April 1778 Gascoigne travelled with the Swinburne family to Rome where, as well-connected Catholics, they mixed with the city's prominent cultural figures, meeting Pope Pius VI in May 1778, before returning to England in July of the following year.
Alongside his Catholic friend, Charles Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas renounced ‘the errors of the Church of Rome before the Archbishop of Canterbury’ on 4 June 1780.
[12][13] The main frieze read 'Liberty in N. America Triumphant MDCCLXXXIII' and whilst it categorically supported the American cause, the arch also subtly indicated Gascoigne's approval of Rockingham who had vocally opposed both Lord North, and the war, in Parliament.
[14] The Parlington arch still stands and in 1975, on the advice of Nikolaus Pevsner, the British Government made unsuccessful enquiries into the possibility of gifting it to the United States of America to mark the bicentenary of American Independence.
Although Barbara Montgomery (made famous as one of the graces in Joshua Reynolds's painting Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen (1773)) was certainly romantically attached to Sir Thomas they were never married.
[19] Since inheriting the baronetcy in 1763 Sir Thomas had always taken an active personal interest in the management of the estate and adopted pioneering techniques in both agriculture and the extractive industries, especially in coal mining.
His estate comprised property in many of the townships stretching between Tadcaster and Leeds in the West Riding and included not only extensive farmland, but limestone quarries at Huddlestone and coal mines at Parlington, Garforth, Barnbow, Sturton, and Seacroft.
[20] Curr recommended the introduction into the mines of iron tramways underground - some of the earliest introduced in Britain - and the installation of atmospheric steam engines for both draining the pits and winding the coal.
The introduction of these measures by Curr, and in particular his iron tramways, significantly extended the working life of each pit and enabled the greater exploitation of coal at the Gascoigne collieries.
