Dr Thomas, an eminent historian and divine of the church of England, was born at Aldwincle, in Northamptonshire, about the year 1608. After receiving the rudiments of education at home, he was sent to Cambridge, where he took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1624, and that of master of arts in 1628, after having much distinguished himself for industry and talent. He was chosen minister of St Bennet's parish, Cambridge, and became very popular as a pulpit orator. In the year 1631 he obtained a fellowship at Sidney College, and was collated to a prebend in the cathedral of Salisbury. The same year he published a poem entitled David's hainous sin, heartie repentance, and heavie punishment. This was his first production, and it is now little known. Having taken priest's orders, he was instituted to the rectory of Broad Windsor, in Dorsetshire. In 1635 he proceeded bachelor of divinity. His History of the Holy War first appeared in 1640; soon after the publication of which work he removed to London, and was chosen lecturer at the Savoy church in the Strand. He was member of the convocation which met in 1640, and was one of the select committee appointed to draw up new canons for the church. In 1642 he published a loyal sermon, which endangered his personal safety; and shortly afterwards he joined the king at Oxford. Before he left London, however, his Holy State, had appeared. After the loss of the battle of Chevilton Down in 1644, he went first to Basins-house, and then to Exeter, where he was appointed chaplain to the infant princess Henrietta Maria. After the surrender of Exeter in 1646, he went to London, and was chosen lecturer, first of St Clement's Church, then of St Bride's. About the year 1648 the Earl of Carlisle presented him with the rectory of Waltham Abbey in Essex. Two years afterwards he published A Pigrim's sight of Palestine and the confines thereof; with the history of the Old and New Testament acted therein, in folio, with maps and views. In 1650 appeared his Abel Redivicus, which consists of lives of reformers, martyrs, divines, and the like. In 1656 he published the Church History of Britain, from the birth of Jesus Christ to the year 1648; to which was subjoined The History of the University of Cambridge since the Conquest, and the History of Waltham Abbey. He removed to Crawford in Middlesex in 1658, which living had been conferred upon him. At the restoration he was reinstated in his prebend of Salisbury. Soon after he obtained the degree of doctor of divinity, was appointed chaplain to his majesty, and destined for the episcopal bench. This last preferment, however, was prevented by his death, which took place on the 15th of August 1661. In the year following, his principal literary work, The Worthies of England was published in folio. This production is valuable on account of the information which it contains relative to the provincial history of the country, and the fund of anecdote and acute observation on men and manners which are profusely scattered throughout it. It is, however, tainted with that elaborate display of quaint conceit, which to a certain extent deteriorates all his productions. But this affectation was the vice of the age, as well as of the author of The Worthies of England. Dr Fuller was remarkable for the strength of his memory, and many almost incredible anecdotes are related of his powers in this respect. It is positively affirmed that he could repeat verbatim a sermon of ordinary length after once hearing it. A new edition of his Worthies, with his life prefixed, appeared in 1810, in two vols. 4to.

workman employed in the woollen manufactories to mill or scour cloths, serges, and other stuffs, in order to render them more thick, compact, and durable.

Fuller's Earth, a species of clay much used in scouring woollen cloth and other stuffs, and thus freeing them from oil and grease. Its colour is greenish white, and different other shades of green. Sometimes it has a spotted colour. It is opaque, shining, and resinous in the streak, very soft, and possesses a greasy feel. It falls into powder with water, and melts into a brown spongy scoria before the blowpipe. In England it occurs in beds; the best is found in Buckinghamshire and Surrey. When good it has a greenish-white or greenish-grey colour, falls into powder when put into water, appears to dissolve on the tongue like butter, communicates a milky hue to water, and deposits very little sand when mixed with boiling water. It is used by fullers in taking grease out of cloth before the soap is applied; and as it contains a considerable proportion of alumina, the remarkable detergent property which woollen cloth possesses depends upon the alumina which it thus obtains. Malcolm, in his Survey of Surrey, published in 1809, states the consumption of fuller's earth for the whole kingdom to be about 6300 tons, and that Surrey alone furnished 4000 tons.