Thomas Swinnerton (or Swynnerton; died 1554) was an evangelical preacher and author during the English Reformation. Swinnerton was one of the first Englishmen to study at Wittenberg University when he enrolled there in 1526. Later sources claim that he studied at Oxford or Cambridge, but this is unlikely and his contemporary, Bishop John Longland of Lincoln claimed in 1536 that he never attended an English university. By 1531, Swinnerton was back in England, where he was accused of abducting one Eleanor Wakefield, the servant of a wealthy London merchant. According to his own account, he was merely staying with the girl in the house of her uncle, William Wakefield, in Yorkshire. To avoid prosecution, Swinnerton adopted the alias Thomas Roberts and perhaps also John Roberts, as claimed by B