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 …showed first 75 words of 951 total…

…showed last 75 words of 951 total…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.