Thomas Combe

Bust of Thomas Combe by Thomas Woolner, 1863, on display at the Ashmolean Museum

Thomas Combe (1796–1872) was a Superintendent of the Oxford University Press in Oxford, England, and a patron of the arts. He was also a founder and benefactor of St Barnabas Church, near the Press in Jericho and close to Oxford Canal.

Combe was the son of a bookseller in Leicestershire. He joined the University Press (or Clarendon Press) in 1837 at its then new (1830) building in Walton Street. Eventually he rose to manage it.

He and his wife Martha (1806-1893) were keen patrons of the arts and particularly appreciated Pre-Raphaelite art. In 1849, he met the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais in Oxford, who painted portraits of Combe's family.

They were also devotees of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement.

Combe is buried in St Sepulchre's Cemetery, off Walton Street, near the University Press.

External links

• Thomas Combe in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography