Born Newport Street, Westminster. Lived a full life the low point of which was probably being held in the Tower of London for high treason, but he was quickly acquitted. Died at home in Chester Lodge on the west side of Wimbledon Common. But was he buried in Bunhill burial ground?
A number of reputable sources claim he was buried in Ealing, including Find a Grave, so we are puzzled. If there was another John Horne Tooke we can't find anything about him, and Find A Grave do not have a JHT buried at Bunhill. And the Ealing JHT did have lots of connections with the nonconformists. Looks to us like there might be a mistake carved into the stone pier on City Road.
Stephen Brasher took this as a challenge and writes to say that Hansard of 1867 reckons Tooke was buried at Bunhill but of course, he writes, even Hansard can repeat mistakes! Stephen will keep looking for more substantial evidence.
2024: SC wrote: "I was looking at newspapers from 1812, they refer to him being buried in his family vault in Ealing churchyard. One report says he did not want a funeral but to pay six of the poorest men in the borough a guinea each to carry his body to a vault in his garden. That didn’t happen… so the plaque in Ealing churchyard looks right. I couldn’t find any references in newspapers to him being buried in Bunhill-fields for 40-50 years after his death." Thanks Sean - this is very persuasive support for the Ealing burial theory.
