#ashmole

Elias Ashmole – Scientist of the Day

Elias Ashmole, an English collector of curiosities and manuscripts, was born May 23, 1617, in Lichfield, Staffordshire.

We're 338 years old today! 🎂 On 24 May 1683, the doors of the Ashmolean Museum were officially opened to the public.

The Ashmolean came into existence when the wealthy antiquary Elias Ashmole gifted his collection to the University in 1682. He did so ‘because the knowledge of Nature is very necessary to human life and health.’ It opened as Britain’s first public museum, and the world’s first university museum.

Below is a print of the museum by Emery Walker from 1909. However, this wasn't actually the original location of the museum. The first site of the Ashmolean was on Broad Street, where the Museum of the History of Science is now.

Bestiaire d'Ashmole, 1201–1225.

Frontispieces and pages from Arthur Dee’s Fasciculus Chemicus—published by Elias Ashmole (artists unknown, 17th century).

Today marks the 403rd birthday of Elias Ashmole, the founder of the Ashmolean Museum.

Elias Ashmole donated most of his collections to the University of Oxford in 1677. Much of the collection had originally been assembled by the noted gardeners and collectors John Tradescant and his son. When the Ashmolean was opened in 1683, it was not just a repository and place for research and teaching but also a public museum. Ashmole’s vision ultimately laid the foundations for museums as we know them today.

Ashmole trained as a lawyer but he was known for his wide-ranging and eclectic interests. He was a collector and antiquary, an alchemist, an astrologer and a botanist. A staunch Royalist, Ashmole left London at the outbreak of the Civil War and moved in 1644 to the new Royalist capital of Oxford. The following year he was admitted to Oxford's Brasenose College to study natural philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and astrology.