Elias Ashmole – the city’s first antiquary
February 4, 2010
Elias Ashmole
The city’s first antiquary (an old fashioned term used to describe a gentleman historian that collected items and artefacts, but specialised in no particular period of study), was Elias Ashmole.
Elias Ashmole (23 May 1617 – 18 May 1692), was a celebrated English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer and student of alchemy. He supported the royalist side during the civil war, and when Charles II was restored to throne, he was rewarded with several lucrative offices.
He was one of the founding members of the Royal Society, and an avid collector of curiosities and other artefacts. Many of these he acquired from the traveller, botanist, and collector John Tradescant the younger. Ashmole donated most of his collection, his antiquarian library and priceless manuscripts to the University of Oxford to create the very first Ashmolean Museum.
February 4, 2010 at 12:02 pm
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