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John Tradescant
the Elder
John Tradescant the Elder (died 1638) was one of the founders
of the Ashmolean Museum and both he and his son, John Tradescant the Younger,
were very well respected gardeners. Indeed, the Elder was gardener to
the 1st Earl of Salisbury at Hatfield House and George Villiers, 1st Duke
of Buckingham. During his employment he had the opportunity to travel
abroad, for example to northern Russia, the Netherlands, France and the
western Mediterranean, in order to collect new plants and specimens. At
the same time he acquired man-made rarities, many of which can be seen
here, from which he formed a ‘cabinet of curiosities’. Eventually
the objects he and his son collected were bequeathed to the Ashmolean
and many of them can be seen in this room.
The Foundation of the Ashmolean
When the collection was owned by the Tradescants, it was housed
at their residence in Lambeth, London, and was called ‘The Ark’.
Members of the public would pay sixpence to view the weird and wonderful
artefacts housed there. When John Tradescant the Younger died, the Ark
passed to his wife, Hester, and then to Elias Ashmole who had been a friend
of the junior Tradescant. Ashmole, in turn, presented the collection to
the University of Oxford along with his own collection of manuscripts
and medals.
The Ashmolean Museum was officially opened on 21st May 1683 and was the
first public Museum in Britain. The Old Ashmolean building can still be
seen today on Broad Street, although it now houses the Museum of the History
of Science. In the course of the Ashmolean’s history, elements of
the collections have been reassigned to the various Oxford University
Museums and to the Bodleian Library, but some of the original objects
are on display here and give a sense of its sheer variety.
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