Thomas Cottam was a 16th-century Jesuit missionary and Catholic priest from Lancashire. Born into a Protestant family, he studied at Oxford before converting to Catholicism in London. This spiritual shift led him to pursue the priesthood, eventually joining the Society of Jesus. While he had originally hoped to serve as a missionary in India, he instead returned to England to minister to Catholics. His mission resulted in his arrest and subsequent execution in London during the reign of Elizabeth I.