Robert Plot

Robert Plot ( born December 13, 1640 Borden, Kent, England; † April 30, 1696 in Sutton Barne, Borden ), Robert Plott, was an English naturalist, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and first curator of the Ashmolean Museum.

Life and work

Robert Plot was the son of the Robert Plot of Sutton Baron ( or Barne ) and his wife Rebecca, who was a daughter of Thomas Plate ends ( or Pedenden ) of Borden. He was born in 1640. and attended the Free School in Wye, Kent. Plot studied at Magdalen Hall, Oxford; 1661 he received the B. A., 1664 the M. A. and in 1671, the BCL and DCL.

He is primarily known as a researcher for curios and wrote a Natural History of Oxfordshire and a Natural History of Staffordshire. In December 1677 he became a member of the Royal Society because of his research on minerals; 1682 to 1684 he was its secretary from 1682 and co-editor of the Philosophical Transactions of this society.

Plot was 1683-1690 First Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum. From 1683 he was professor of chemistry at the University of Oxford. In 1687, he became secretary of the Earl Marshal, Henry Howard, 7th Duke of Norfolk; In the same year he was Registrar of the Court of Chivalry. In 1688 he became historiographer royal, 1694 Mowbray Herald Extraordinary.

In the field of chemistry, he conducted research for a universal solvent that he wanted to make wine spirit, and believed that the medicine is dependent on the alchemy. From 1686 he turned to archeology, but interpreted finds from Roman times as Saxon origin. He was particularly interested in the unusual; so he explored the properties of the air on the basis of echoes examined mineral springs and recognized the stratification of layers of earth. Finds of fossil shells he explained as random collections of mineral crystals, and he said that sources can also be fed through underground channels with seawater.

Plot married Rebecca, widow of Henry Burton and daughter of Ralph Sherwood, a grocer in London. He died on 30 April 1696 concretions and was buried at the Church of Borden.

Works (selection)

• The natural history of Oxford -shire. Being an essay towards the Natural History of England, Minet, Chichelet 1972 < Repr d ed Oxford, 1677 >
• The natural history of Stafford -shire, Morton, Manchester, 1973, ISBN 0-901598-65-8 < Repr d ed Oxford 1686 >
• De Origine Fontium, Tentamen Philosophicum. In praelectione habita coram Societate Philosophica nuper Oxonii instituta ad scientiam naturalem promovendam, Sheldon, Oxford, 1685

Swell

• Entry in the archive of the Royal Society