Elias Ashmole

His father, Simon Ashmole, was an artisan and a saddler, but he spent more time as a soldier in Ireland and on the continent. Elias implies that he plunged the family into poverty although he did inherit a house from him. He was educated at Lichfield grammar school with legal training in London, 1633-8. Ashmole studied in Oxford in 1645, and was a member of Brasenose College. He took no degree, but he must have developed …

…the Ashmolean Museum. He was deeply interested in the medicinal uses of plants and a member of the Royal Society in 1661, although not active. Sources Elias Ashmole, 5 vols., ed. with a biographical introduction by C.H.Josten, (Oxford, 1966). Volume one is the biography. Dictionary of National Biography (repr., London: Oxford University Press, 1949-1950), 1, 644-6. Biographia Britannica, 7 vols. (London, 1747-63), 1, 223-36. Compiled by Richard S. Westfall Department of the History and Philosophy of Science Indiana University.