Thomas Harvey was a jurat, or alderman, of Folkestone, where he served the office of mayor in 1600. He lived in a fair stone house, which afterwards became the posthouse. Its site, however, is no longer known, though it is the opinion of those best qualified to judge that it stood at the junction of Church Street with Rendezvous Street.
Thomas Harvey seems to have been a man of more than ordinary intelligence and judgment, for "his sons, who revered, consulted, and implicitly trusted him, made their father the treasurer of their wealth when they got great estates, who, being as skilful to purchase land," says Fuller, "as they to gain money kept, employed and improved their gainings to their great advantage, so that he survived to see the meanest of them of far greater estate than himself." To this end he came to London after the death of his wife in 1605, and lived for some time at Hackney, where he died and was buried in June, 1623. His portrait is still to be seen in the central panel in one end wall of the dining-room at Rolls Park, Chigwell, in Essex, which was one of the first estates acquired by his son Eliab. "It is certainly," says Dr. Willis, "of the time when he lived, and it bears a certain resemblance to some of the likenesses we have of his most distinguished son."
All that is known of Joan Harvey is on a brass tablet, which still exists to her memory in the parish church at Folkestone. It bears the following record of her virtues, written either by her husband or by William Harvey, her son:--
"A.D. 1605 Nov. 8th died in the 50th. yeare of her age Joan Wife of Tho. Harvey. Mother of 7 sones & 2 Daughters. A Godly harmles Woman: A chaste loveinge Wife: A Charitable qviet Neighbour: A c[~o]fortable frendly Matron: A provident diligent Hvswyfe: A carefvll t[-e]der-harted Mother. Deere to her Hvsband: Reverensed of her Children: Beloved of her Neighbovrs: Elected of God. Whose Soule rest in Heaven, her body in this Grave: To her a Happy Advantage: to Hers an Unhappy Loss."
The children of Thomas and Joan Harvey were--
(1) William, born at Folkestone on the 1st of April, 1578; died at Roehampton, in Surrey, on the 3rd of June, 1657; buried in the "outer vault" of the Harvey Chapel at Hempstead, in Essex.