Early Life
John Nichols Thom was born a son of a publican, in 1799 at St Columb Major in Cornwall. When he was a child, his mother died in an insane asylum. He worked for five years with two wine merchants in Truro until the business collapsed. Thom proceeded to become a wine merchant himself. In 1828, he was a maltster, when fire destroyed his malthouse and he collected £1000 for insurance to begin anew.
At the Quarter Sessions held at Bodmin on 15 July 1828, Thom applied successfully for the return of £304 paid in excise duty on malt destroyed in the fire at his malthouse on 17 June 1828.
After some years, he disappeared. Having departed Truro in 1832, he became infatuated with Lady Hester Stanhope. Thom claimed to have followed her to Beirut only to be utterly rejected. The claims that he travelled to the Near East are probably false as he was known to have been in Liverpool and also London at the time.
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