Elias Ashmole

Elias Ashmole (May 23, 1617 – May 18, 1692) was an antiquarian, collector, politician and student of astrology and alchemy. He supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he was rewarded with several lucrative offices. Throughout his life he was an avid collector of curiosities and other artifacts, many of which he acquired from the traveller, botanist and collector John Tradescant, and most of which he donated to Oxford University to create the Ashmolean Museum. He also donated his library and priceless manuscript collection to Oxford.

Ashmolean Museum

In 1677, Ashmole made a gift of the Tradescant Collection, together with material he had collected independently, to Oxford University on the condition that a suitable home be built to house the materials and make them available to the public. The Ashmolean Museum, designed by Christopher Wren, was completed in 1682. According to Anthony Wood, the collection filled twelve wagons when it was transferred to Oxford. It would have been more, but a large part of Ashmole's own collection, destined for the museum, including coins, medals, antiquities, books, manuscripts and prints, was destroyed in a disastrous fire in the Middle Temple on January 26, 1679.

Related Topics:
1677 - Oxford University - Christopher Wren - 1682 - Anthony Wood - Middle Temple - January 26 - 1679

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Ashmole's health began to deteriorate in the 1680s, and though he would hold his excise office until he died, he became much less active in affairs. He began to collect notes on his life in diary form to serve as source material for a biography; although the biography was never written, these notes are a rich source of information on Ashmole and his times. He died in Lambeth on May 18, 1692. He was buried at South Lambeth Church. Ashmole bequeathed his library and his priceless manuscript collection to Oxford.

Related Topics:
1680s - Lambeth - May 18 - 1692

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Michael Hunter, in his entry on Ashmole for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, concluded that the most salient points of Ashmole's character were his ambition and his hierarchical vision of the world—a vision that unified his royalism and his interests in heraldry, genealogy, ceremony and even astrology and magic. He was as successful in his legal, business and political affairs as we was in his collecting and scholarly pursuits. His antiquarian work is still considered valuable, and his alchemical publications, especially the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, preserved many works that might otherwise have been lost. He formed several close and long-lasting friendships, with John Aubrey for example, but, as Richard Garnett has observed, "Acquisitiveness was his master passion".

Related Topics:
John Aubrey - Richard Garnett

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