Thomas Tryon

Born in Bibury, Gloucestershire, in 1634, Thomas Tryon had very little formal schooling and worked from childhood, first in wool work and later as a shepherd. He taught himself to read and write, moved to London as a young man, trained in the hat trade, and eventually became a successful merchant.

Tryon is remembered for linking spiritual life with everyday habits. In the later part of his life he published many books on diet, health, temperance, education, and moral conduct, arguing for plain living, abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, and a meat-free diet. He was also an unusually early voice against cruelty to animals and against the brutal treatment of enslaved people.

His most widely read book, The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness, helped spread his ideas far beyond his own circle. Though rooted in his religious and philosophical beliefs, his writing often aimed to be practical and accessible, which helped make him one of the more distinctive popular moral writers of late 17th-century England.