Thomas Owen (died 1598)

He was educated at Oxford University, (variously stated to have been at Christ Church or Broadgates Hall), gaining a B.A.

[1] Although Owen bought the manor of Condover, near Shrewsbury, in 1586, and built a fine red sandstone house there which was completed in 1598, he does not seem to have lived in it himself.

In his will he left the bailiffs of Shrewsbury money for the relief of 'decayed householders' and 'poor impotent persons' in the parish of Saint Chad, where he was born.

The folklorist Charlotte Burne recorded a local legend, told by a person in the parish of Condover in 1881 – noting it to be "utterly at variance with facts", which she meticulously explained- wherein Owen, here the "clever" "son of the ostler of the Lion inn", had risen through education into the legal profession.

In studying past trials, he came to suspect that John Viam, a servant at Condover Hall, had been falsely accused of murdering the lord of the manor, Knevett, in the reign of Henry VIII.