one who dresses hides by tanning them. See TANNING.

(Dr Thomas), an English prelate and celebrated antiquarian, born in 1674. He was admitted of Queen's college Oxford, where a familiarity of taste for antiquities produced a close friendship between him and Edmund Gibbon afterwards bishop of London. In 1697, he was chosen fellow of his college; and having already published some specimens of his skill in the antiquarian way, soon after became known to Dr Moore bishop of Norwich, who made him chancellor of his diocese. In 1722, he was made archdeacon of Norwich, and in 1731 bishop of St Asaph. He died at Oxford in 1735; and after his death was published an elaborate work, said to have employed him for 40 years, under this title, Bibliotheca Britannica Hibernica, sive de Scriptoribus qui in Anglia, Scotia, et Hibernia, ad seculi XVII. initium floruerunt, &c.