Training the virtuoso: John Aubrey’s education and early life

Abstract

John Aubrey's contributions to antiquarianism and archaeology helped to shape the development of several disciplines in English scholarship. This paper looks at the educational milieu that produced his pioneering work, following him from his Wiltshire gentry background through school at Blandford Forum, Dorset, to Trinity College, Oxford, the Middle Temple, and beyond as a young gentleman with a scientific turn of mind in Commonwealth London. It substantially clarifies and revises previous estimates of the extent and nature of his education and offers a case study in the early training of a Restoration "virtuoso".