Ralph Bathurst

Ralph Bathurst,

He was born in Hothorpe, Northamptonshire in 1620 and educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry.

He graduated with a B.A. degree from Trinity College, Oxford in 1638, where he had a family connection with the President, Ralph Kettell (1563–1643).^[1]

Oxford science and medicine

He originally intended a career in the Church of England, and was ordained in 1644, but his prospects were disrupted by the English Civil War, and he turned to medicine. He collaborated with Thomas Willis, and it was to Bathurst that Willis dedicated his first medical publication, the Diatribae Duae of 1659.

Bathurst was active in the intellectual ferment of the time, and very well-connected. In the account given by

He worked in practical medicine under the physician Daniel Whistler (1619–1684). This was during the First Anglo-Dutch War of 1652 to 1654, when Whistler was in charge of wounded naval personnel.^[1] He theorised fruitfully in 1654 on respiration, in a dissertation for his higher medical degree, and his ideas were later taken up, by Boyle and John Mayow.^[1][7]

Later life

On the

A biography was written by Thomas Warton.^{[citation needed]}

Family

He was one of thirteen sons of George Bathurst of Theddingworth, Leicestershire and his first wife Elizabeth Villiers of Hothorpe Hall, Northamptonshire.^[13] This large royalist family suffered greatly in the Civil War, with six of Ralph Bathurst's brothers being killed. Surviving brothers included the politician Sir Benjamin Bathurst and Henry Bathurst, Recorder of Cork.^[1]

Theodore Bathurst (died 1651), known as a neo-Latin poet, was a nephew.^[14] Another nephew was Ralph Bohun (1639–1716), a poet and experimentalist.^[15]

References