Thomas (senior) Penson

• Birth date           circa 1760
• Marriage             1 February 1787 to Charlotte Brown of Wrexham at Wrexham Parish Church
• Death date         30 March 1824

Thomas Penson senior was born in about 1760. He practiced at Wrexham as a mason, auctioneer and architect and from 1810 was County Surveyor of Flintshire until dismissed for reasons which are unrecorded but which were almost certainly connected with the collapse of the new Overton Bridge over the River Dee on which he was working at that date. Thomas built the County Gaol at Flint in 1806 whilst de facto County Surveyor (his appointment appears not to have been formally confirmed until 1810). Earlier, in 1784, he had designed the County Gaol at Caernarfon. His dismissal as Flint County Surveyor appears not to have blighted his career for, he became County Surveyor of Denbighshire, a post which he retained probably until a few years before his death on 30 March 1824.

The elder Thomas married Charlotte Brown of Wrexham on the 1 February 1787 at Wrexham Parish Church. They had three children: Thomas Penson the younger. born 5th May 1790, Jane Penson and John William Todd Penson, the artist (1796-1826). All three appear to have been born in Wrexham where their parents had probably settled at the time of their marriage in 1787.