Thomas Woolston

Thomas Woolston was an English theologian and religious controversialist from Northampton, educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He took holy orders and was made a fellow of the college, but his unorthodox views eventually cost him that position.

He is best remembered for arguing that many Gospel miracles should be read allegorically rather than literally. That position, set out most famously in his Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour in the late 1720s, made him one of the most talked-about and attacked religious writers of his day.

Reference works describe him variously as a deist, freethinker, or an Anglican with highly unconventional beliefs. He died in London in 1733.