Early life Thomas Browne was born in the parish of
St Michael,
Cheapside, in London on 19 October 1605. He was the youngest child of Thomas Browne, a silk merchant from
Upton, Cheshire, and Anne Browne, the daughter of Paul Garraway of
Lewes, Sussex. He had an elder brother and two elder sisters. The family, who had lived at Upton for several generations, were "evidently people of some importance" who "intermarried with families of position in that neighbourhood", and were
armigerous. Browne's paternal grandmother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Henry Birkenhead,
Clerk of the Green Cloth to
Elizabeth I of England and
Clerk of the Crown for the counties of
Cheshire and
Flintshire. Browne's father died while he was young, and his mother married Sir Thomas Dutton of
Gloucester and
Isleworth,
Middlesex, by whom she had two daughters. '' (), by
Joan Carlile Browne was educated at
Winchester College. In 1623, he went to
Broadgates Hall of
Oxford University. Browne was chosen to deliver the undergraduate oration when the hall was incorporated as
Pembroke College in August 1624. He graduated from Oxford in January 1627, after which he studied medicine at
Padua and
Montpellier universities, completing his studies at
Leiden, where he received a
medical degree in 1633. He settled in
Norwich in 1637 and practised medicine there until he died in 1682. In 1641, Browne married Dorothy Mileham of
Burlingham St Peter, Norfolk. They had 10 children, six of whom died before their parents.
Literary career Browne's first literary work was
Religio Medici (The Religion of a Physician). It surprised him when an unauthorised edition appeared in 1642, which included unorthodox religious speculations. An authorised text appeared in 1643, with some of the more controversial views removed. The expurgation did not end the controversy. The Scottish writer
Alexander Ross attacked in his (1645). Browne's book was placed upon the Papal
Index Librorum Prohibitorum in the same year. In 1646, Browne published his encyclopaedia,
Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries into Very many Received Tenents, and commonly Presumed Truths, the title of which refers to the prevalence of false beliefs and "vulgar errors". A sceptical work that debunks in a methodical and witty manner several legends circulating at the time, it displays the
Baconian side of Browne—the side that was unafraid of what at the time was still called the "
New Learning". The book is significant in the
history of science because it promoted an awareness of scientific journalism. The last works published by Browne were two philosophical Discourses. They are closely related to each other in concept. The first,
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or a Brief Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk (1658), was inspired by the discovery in Norfolk of some 40 to 50
Anglo-Saxon burial urns. It is a literary meditation upon death, the
funerary customs of the world and the ephemerality of fame. The other discourse in the
diptych is antithetical in style, subject matter and imagery.
The Garden of Cyrus, or The Quincuncial Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, and Mystically Considered (1658) features the
quincunx that Browne used to demonstrate evidence of
the Platonic forms in art and nature.
Later life and knighthood Browne believed in the existence of
angels and
witchcraft. He attended the 1662
Bury St Edmunds witch trial, where his
citation of a similar trial in Denmark may have influenced the jury's minds concerning two accused women, who were later found guilty of witchcraft. In November 1671,
King Charles II, accompanied by his
Court, visited Norwich. The courtier
John Evelyn, who had occasionally corresponded with Browne, made good use of the royal visit to call upon "the learned doctor" of European fame and wrote of his visit, recording that "his whole house and garden is a paradise and Cabinet of rarities and that of the best collection, amongst Medails, books, Plants, natural things". During his visit, Charles visited Browne's home. A
banquet was held in
St Andrew's Hall for the royal visit. Obliged to honour a notable local, the name of the Mayor of Norwich was proposed to the King for
knighthood. The Mayor, however, declined the honour and proposed Browne's name instead.
Death and aftermath Browne died on 19 October 1682, his 77th birthday. He was buried in the
chancel of
St Peter Mancroft, Norwich. His skull was removed when his lead coffin was accidentally reopened by workmen in 1840. It was not re-interred in St Peter Mancroft until 4 July 1922, when it was recorded in the
burial register as aged 317 years. Browne's
coffin plate, which was stolen the same time as his skull, was also eventually recovered, broken into two halves, one of which is on display at St Peter Mancroft. Alluding to the commonplace opus of
alchemy, it reads,
Amplissimus Vir Dns. Thomas Browne, Miles, Medicinae Dr., Annos Natus 77 Denatus 19 Die mensis Octobris, Anno. Dni. 1682, hoc Loculo indormiens. Corporis Spagyrici pulvere plumbum in aurum Convertit. — translated from Latin as "The esteemed Gentleman Thomas Browne, Knight, Doctor of Medicine, 77 years old, died on the 19th of October in the year of Our Lord 1682 and lies sleeping in this coffin. With the dust of his alchemical body he converts lead into gold". The origin of the invented word
spagyrici is from the Greek
spao to tear open +
ageiro to collect, a signature neologism coined by
Paracelsus to define his medicine-oriented alchemy; the origins of
iatrochemistry, being first advanced by him. Browne's coffin-plate verse, along with the collected works of Paracelsus and several followers of the Swiss physician listed in his library, is evidence that although sometimes highly critical of Paracelsus, nevertheless, like the 'Luther of Medicine', he believed in
palingenesis,
physiognomy, alchemy,
astrology and the
kabbalah. The
Library of Sir Thomas Browne was held in the care of his eldest son Edward until 1708. The auction of Browne and his son Edward's libraries in January 1711 was attended by
Hans Sloane. Editions from the library were subsequently included in the founding collection of the
British Library. ==Autobiography==