Thomas Traherne

The poet Thomas Traherne was born circa 1637, the son of a Herefordshire shoemaker. There is no record of young Thomas ever attending any of the local schools. However, it is probable that a wealthy relative, Philip Traherne, an innkeeper who was twice mayor of Hereford, sponsored his education. The registers of Brasenose College, Oxford University confirm that on March 1st 1653 Thomas Traherne was entered as a Commoner and the usual fees were paid.

Regardless (or perhaps because) of his humble upbringing and education, from an early age Traherne's quest was felicity (happiness, joy, bliss). He wrote about a child-like vision of a perfect world in spite of evil and corruption brought on by material greed and selfishness. "Man falls from the estate of innocence because he turns from nature to a world of artificiality and invention."

Of Oxford, Traherne later wrote: "There was never a tutor that did professly teach Felicity, though that be the mistress of all other sciences ... We studied to inform our knowledge, but knew not for what end we studied. And for lack of aiming at a certain end we erred in the manner." He believed that the self stood in the way of the individual achieving felicity: "It is the self, the so called individual self which is the obstacle to the enjoyment of this deep and glorious world, the enjoyment which is Felicity."

In 1657 Traherne was appointed Rector of Credenhill, feeling a deep vocation for the priesthood: "I need the oil of pity and balm of love to remedy and heal ..." He felt that the priest can help people in the quest for felicity: "The priest must cure evil; sin is an illness which can be remedied ..."

In 1669 Traherne left Credenhill for London and in 1672 he moved to the Bridgeman estate at Teddington where he died in 1674. In his will he left five tenement houses in the parish of All Saints in Hereford to the city for use of the poor.

There is a Traherne Association in Hereford which organises an annual Traherne Festival in June. In 2007 a set of stained glass windows commemorating Thomas Traherne was installed in Hereford Cathedral.

[Original author: Toria Forsyth-Moser, 2003]