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THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
Saturday, July 5th, 1890. Joint Meeting of the Club and the
Gilbert Club at Colchester.
As stated in the programme issued for the Meeting, its leading idea was to
afford to members of the Gilbert Club1 and the Essex Field Club and others
interested in the history of science, and the parts filled by Englishmen in its
inception and progress, an opportunity of visiting the birth-place, death-place
and last resting-place of the founder of the science of Electricity, one of
the first men in our history who caught hold of and pursued the true methods of
questioning Nature, and an Essex worthy entitled to take rank with Ray among
the great pioneers of true knowledge.
The best summaries of the scanty facts known of the life of this first great
recruit in the noble army of English experimental philosophers, will be found in
Dr. B. W. Richardson's papers in the "Wayfarer : Journal of the Society of
Cyclists" (vol. i., pp. 56-69), and "Longman's Magazine" (for May, 1890, pp.
70-88); also in Mr. Conrad W. Cooke's papers in "Engineering" (December,
1889), since reprinted as a pamphlet (London, 1890). From these essays, and
from Morant, the following sketch is principally compiled :—
William Gilberd 2 was the eldest of five sons of Hierom (Jerome) Gylberd,
born at Clare, in Suffolk, but afterwards a burgess of Colchester (admitted in
1553) and who was at one time, according to Symonds, Recorder of the town.3
William was born in Colchester in the year 1540, in a house which still stands
near Holy Trinity Church, known as Tymperley's or Tympernell's, "a goodly
respectable house to this day, and at one time quite a commanding residence, in the
fine old town," being in Morant's days "the same as Serjeant Price, the late
Recorder of this Borough, lived in, and is now possess'd by his widow and relict
Mrs. Bridget Price." Of his boyish days at Colchester Grammar School we
have no particulars, but at the age of eighteen (in May, 1550), he matriculated at
St. John's College, Cambridge, taking his B.A. degree in 1560, when, in his
twenty-first year, he was elected a Fellow of his College on Mr. Symson's
foundation. He proceeded to M.A. in 1564, and became Mathematical
Examiner at St. John's in 1565 and 1566. He was Senior Bursar of his college
in 1569, taking his M.D. degree in the same year, and on December 21st (when
twenty-nine years of age), he became Senior Fellow. Afterwards for three years
he travelled on the continent, and is said to have studied medicine and to
have taken a degree there, possibly at Padua. On returning to England in
1573, he was elected a Fellow of the College of Physicians, and took up his
abode in a house on St. Peter's Hill, near St. Paul's between Upper Thames
1 The principal object of the Gilbert Club, which was inaugurated on November 28th, 1889,
and of which Sir William Thomson, F.R.S., is President, is to bring out an English edition of
the famous "De Magnete," as nearly as possible in imitation of the fine folio edition of 1600.
2 "So he writ his name ; and not Gilbert as is generally written by others."—Morant
3 This statement is based on the following inscription formerly in Holy Trinity Church
("Symond's Collec., vol. i., fol. 437), but which had disappeared in Morant's time :—"Here
lyeth the body of Jherome Gilberd, sometime Recorder of this towne of Colchester, and
Elizabeth his first wife, and Margaret his daughter ; he dyed 23 of May, 1583." Morant record-
that his "great grandfather, Thomas Gilberd, born at Hinticlissham, in Suffolk, was also
made a Burgess of this town in 1428."