Thomas Keble was a Church of England clergyman, younger brother of John Keble.
Background
Keble was born at Fairford on 25 October 1793. Like his elder brother, John, he was educated entirely by his father, and was elected at the same early age (fourteen) Gloucestershire scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 31 March 1808.
Education
In 1811 he graduated Bachelor of Arts, having gained a second class in classics and a third class (then called a second below the line) in mathematics.
Career
Keble was Vicar of Bisley, Gloucestershire from 1827 to 1873. He was ordained deacon in December 1816, and priest in 1817. From the beginning of 1817 to the end of 1818 he had the parochial charge of Windrush and Sherborne, Gloucestershire.
In the autumn of 1819 he became college tutor at Corpus.
At the time he headed the list of scholars, and, according to a. contemporary at Corpus, accepted the post reluctantly, after several previous refusals (of Phelps). In 1825 be married Elizabeth Jane Clarke, daughter of a former fellow of Corpus, afterwards rector of Meyseyhampton.
In 1827 he was instituted to the living of Bisley, Gloucestershire, then a scattered parish with a number of outlying hamlets filled with a very poor and neglected population. He persevered, in spite of many discouragements, in improving the bodily and spiritual condition of the people, and there are now three consecrated churches with districts assigned to them taken out of the old parish, besides a consecrated chapel of ease with a conventional district.
His whole thoughts were absorbed in his parish.
The example set at Bisley was followed, through Isaac Williams, at Saint Mary"s, Oxford, and Littlemore, and thence spread through England. Thomas Keble wrote four of the "Tracts for the Times," viz. Nos. 12, 22, 43 and 84.
The first three belong to the "Richard Nelson " series, which was afterwards published in a separate form.
He also wrote forty-eight of the "Plain Sermons," the publication of which in connection with the "Tracts" was probably first suggested by him. His own contributions are those marked East in volume.x.
He translated the Homilies of Street John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews for the Library of the Fathers, the translation being revised by John Barrow. He published a short tract, Considerations on the Athanasian Creed, in 1872, and a preface to Short Sketches of the Fathers of the English Church, by Francis Philip.