author
Elias Ashmole
1617–1692
Best known as the founder of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, this 17th-century English antiquary moved easily between scholarship, collecting, astrology, and alchemy. His life opens a vivid window onto the curious, wide-ranging world of early modern learning.
1 Audiobook
The History of the Most Noble Order of the Garter
by Elias Ashmole
About the author
Born in Lichfield in 1617, Elias Ashmole became an English antiquary, collector, and scholar whose interests ranged from heraldry and history to astrology and alchemy. He supported the royalist cause during the English Civil War, and after the Restoration he held several official posts, including work as an officer of arms.
Ashmole is remembered above all for the collection that helped found the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, one of the earliest public museums in Britain. Much of what he donated had come through his connection with the Tradescant collection, and his gift gave the museum its lasting place in cultural history.
He also wrote and compiled important works, including books connected with alchemical and antiquarian study, which show how closely science, history, and the occult could still sit together in the 1600s. He died in 1692, but his name remains firmly linked with the growth of museums, collecting, and early modern scholarship.