Thomas Astle

Thomas Astle FRS FRSE FSA (22 December 1735 – 1 December 1803) was an English antiquary and palaeographer.

Astle was born on 22 December 1735 at Yoxall on the borders of Needwood Forest in Staffordshire, the son of Daniel Astle, keeper of the forest. He was articled to an attorney, but did not follow up his profession, and went to London, where he was employed to make an index to the catalogue of the Harleian manuscripts, printed in 1759, 2 vols, folio.

He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1763, and about the same time George Grenville employed him in the arrangement of papers and other matters which required a knowledge of ancient handwriting, and nominated him, with Sir Joseph Ayloffe and Andrew Coltée Ducarel, as members of a commission to superintend the regulation of the public records at Westminster. On the death of the two colleagues, John Topham was substituted; he and Astle were removed under Pitt's administration. The same persons were appointed by royal commission in 1764 to superintend the methodising of the records of state and council preserved in the State Paper Office at Whitehall. In 1765 Astle was made receiver-general of sixpence in the pound on the civil list, and on 18 December of the same year he married Anna Maria, the only daughter and heiress of the Rev. Philip Morant, the historian of Essex.

In 1766 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society, and in the same year he was consulted by a committee of the House of Lords on the subject of printing the ancient records of parliament. He suggested the employment of his father-in-law in this work, and succeeded him upon his death in 1770. After the death (1775) of Henry Rooke, chief clerk of the Record Office in the Tower, Astle was appointed to his place; and on the decease of Sir John Shelley, Keeper of the Records, in 1783, obtained the higher office.

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