Thomas Bickley

Thomas Bickley (1518–1596) was an English churchman, a Marian exile who became Warden of Merton College, Oxford and Bishop of Chichester He was born at Stow, Buckinghamshire, and began his education as a chorister in the free school of Magdalen College, Oxford.

[1] During the reign of Mary I of England he went to France, where he spent most of his time in study at Paris and Orléans.

Returning to England after the accession of Elizabeth I, he enjoyed rapid promotion, being made, within ten years, chaplain to Archbishop Matthew Parker, rector of Biddenden in Kent, of Sutton Waldron in Dorset, archdeacon of Stafford, chancellor in Lichfield Cathedral, and Warden of Merton College, Oxford.

Some of the returns to articles of inquiry made at his visitations have been preserved amongst the episcopal records.

A tablet to Bickley's memory is attached to the north wall of the lady chapel, surmounted by a small kneeling effigy of the bishop.