Richard Tomlins (merchant)

Richard Tomlins or Tomlyns (?1564–1650)[1][2] was an English merchant resident in the City of Westminster who funded the first studies in anatomy at Oxford University..

Richard Tomlins in 1628, Bodleian Library, Oxford

In the autumn of 1623 Tomlins proposed to fund a readership in Anatomy at Oxford.[3] His proposal was accepted, and the governing documents for the Tomlins Readership in Anatomy were formally adopted on 1 October 1624. The lectureship was attached to the Regius Professor of Physic, and Tomlins nominated "his worthy friend Thomas Clayton" to be first reader. The readership included an annual stipend of £25.[3][4][5]

Outside of the readership, the details of Tomlins' life are "little known".[3][5]

A portrait of Tomlins by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger has been with the Bodleian Library since at least 1759.[6][1]

References edit

  1. ^ a b Wright, Christopher; Gordon, Catherine May; Peskett Smith, Mary (2006). British and Irish Paintings in Public Collections. Yale University Press. p. 361. ISBN 0300117302. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  2. ^ "Richard Tomlins ?1564-1650". Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  3. ^ a b c Tyacke, Nicolas (1997). Seventeenth Century Oxford. Clarendon Press. p. 541.
  4. ^ The Lee Benefactions and the origins of the Christ Church Science Laboratory
  5. ^ a b Marshall, W. Gerald (1997). The Restoration Mind. University of Delaware Press. p. 86. ISBN 9780874135718. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  6. ^ Strong, Roy (1969). The English Icon: Elizabethan and Jacobean Portraiture. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.