People and their collections

Robert Plot 1640-96 - scientist & antiquary

Who was he? (summary)

Robert Plot was appointed, in 1683, as the first Keeper of The Ashmolean Museum, the oldest public museum in Britain. He was also the first Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University.

He embraced something of Renaissance values, which emphasised the potential of the individual and this life, while occupying a prominent position in the practice of the 'New Science' of the seventeenth century.

His wide-ranging surveys, The Natural History of Oxford-shire (1677) and The Natural History of Stafford-shire (1686) are still indispensable sources for modern-day scholars.

Dr. Robert Plot of Magdalen Hall
(courtesy of the Museum of the History of Science)