Christie, Thomas

Submitted by edpope on

Mr Christie proposed Society for Constitutional Information 20.4.1792 by John Frost 2nded John Lockhart

This seems likely to have been Thomas Christie (DNB 1761-1796) but since there was no surname or address entered in the minutes it's hard to be sure

GODWIN DIARY Christie 22.3.1795 at John King's / 30.12.1795 at Newton's / 15.4.1796 adv at Wolstonecraft's / 23.4.1796 call on, w. Imlay / 5.6.1800 call on Christie (incog) & Colman (do) / 9.9.1801 adv Mr Christie at Lamb's

The first four entries above have been coded to Thomas Christie (DNB 1761-1796) in GD website. The last two are uncoded, and the last one at Lamb's is identified in my Christy entry. I would suggest that the third and fourth entries above should be coded to Thomas Christie's wife Rebecca. The Imlay in the fourth entry was what at this point Godwin was using for Mary Wollstonecraft. I think Mrs Christie was a close enough friend of Mary Wollstonecraft for Godwin to take to naming her without a Mrs/Miss prefix, as he always did for Mary Wollstonecraft, though the first two times he met her, on 14.1.1796 and 3.2.1796, he called her Mrs Christie in the diary. I also wonder whether Thomas Christie had already, by April, left for Surinam, where he died in October 1796. It is also seems strange to me, if the first entry above was in fact Thomas Christie, that Godwin first met him at John King's, in the company of Rogers (who I have suggested was George, not Samuel Rogers) and Mrs Wilson. As for the second entry above at Newton's, Bell was in the company, and the first Christie Godwin had met was Miss Christie at Mackintosh's on 3.2.1794 with Bell present, and he met her again at Bell's on 28.2.1794. Bell was also a guest at Newton's two weeks later on 14.1.1796 (along with many other of the same guests of Newton) when Godwin first met Mrs Christie with Wolstencraft, and this was only the second time he'd met Wolstonecraft since her return from Paris. There is nothing at all definite about these speculations, but for me they cast some doubt on whether any of these entries were Thomas Christie, and the question also remains who the later E Christie was (see my entry for Christie, E). As for the fifth entry, in 1800, that is very mysterious with its two "incog" (nito?) calls