John Nichols Thom (original) (raw)

John Nichols Tom (sometimes spelt Thom; 1799 – 31 May 1838) was a Cornish wine-merchant and maltster who re-invented himself as Sir William Courtenay, stood for parliament in Canterbury, was convicted of perjury in a smuggling case, spent three years in the Kent County Lunatic Asylum, and, following his release, gathered a small band of followers and paraded in the Kent countryside. He, using the title Sir William Percy Honeywood Courtney, King of Jerusalem, along with several of his followers, was killed in a confrontation with British Army soldiers in Bossenden Wood, in what has sometimes been called the last battle to be fought on English soil.