Who was John Locke?
Philosopher and physician of the Enlightenment
and known as father of Liberalism. He clearly separated Church and
State.
Date and Place of Birth:
29th August 1632, Wrington, Somerset, England
in a small thatched cottage by the parish church.
Family Background:
Son of a Puritan country lawyer, landowner and
clerk to the Justices of the Peace in Chew Magna, who was a captain
of horse in the parliamentary army during the English Civil War.
His mother, Agnes (nee Keene), was the daughter of a tanner. Both
were Puritans.
Education:
Westminster School. Christ Church College, Oxford,
where he became more interested in the modern Philosophy of Renee
Descartes than the classicism of the curriculum.
Chronology/Biography of John Locke:
1632: The family
move to Pensford near Bristol and lived in a tudor house in Belluton.
1646: Locke enters
Westminster School with sponsorship from Alexander Popham an MP
and one of his father's military commanders.
1652: Goes up to
Oxford University.
1656: Locke awarded
a bachelor's Degree at the University of Oxford where he studies
medicine in his spare time. Acts as Secretary to Sir Walter Vane,
ambassador to the Elector of Brandenburg during the first Dutch
war and travels on the continent.
1658: Awarded a Master's
Degree.
1659: Elected to
a senior studentship at Oxford which meant he was involved in teaching.
1666: Locke
obtains a dispensation which enabled him to hold his studentship
without taking clerical orders. Declines the offer to travel
to Spain on diplomatic business and settles;les in Oxford. Meets
Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who had
arrived at Oxford in ill health seeking treatment for his live.
Cooper was so impressed with Locke's medical skills that he asked
him to become part of his household.
1667: Moves into
The earl of Shaftesbury's home, Exeter House in London as his personal
physician. Continues studying medicine with Thomas Sydenham. He
persuaded The Earl to have an operation to remove the cyst on his
liver. At the time an operation was life threatening but he survived
and recovered his health. Shaftesbury was later to become a founder
of the Whig Movement and a political influence on Locke.
1668: Locke elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
1671: Locke appointed
as the Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary
to the Lords and Proprietors of the Carolinas in America which gave
him an overview of economic theory and interest in America. He was
involved in drafting "The Fundamental Constitution of the Carolinas",
which created a feudal aristocrat system in the States and gave
Master absolute power over slaves. He was also a major investor
in the Royal African Company which encouraged the English slave-trade.
1672: Shaftesbury
becomes Lord Chancellor and Locke his official secretary.
1674: Awarded a Bachelor
Degree in Medicine.
1675: Shaftesbury
falls out of favour in Government circles and Locke travels across
France as a tutor and physician to Caleb Banks. He settles in Montpellier
for many months
1679: Returns to
England to help Shaftesbury once more and composed most of the "Two
Treatises of Government". This work is an argument against
absolute monarchy particularly that proposed by Thomas
Hobbes and for individual consent as the foundation of political
power.
1683: Locke fleas
to the Netherlands after being suspected in the Rye House plot to
assassinate King Charles the Second. He moves around from house
to house fearing arrest and lives under an assumed name. Here he
has more time to devote to his writing.
1684: Deprived of
his studentship at Oxford by Royal mandate.
1688: Locke comes
back to England with the Wife of WIlliam of Orange at the Glorious
Revolution. Offered the post of Ambassador at Berlin or Vienna but
he declines both.
1689: Appointed Commissioner
of Appeals.
1690: His major work
"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" was published
and is the start of the modern western idea of the self. He describes
all objects of understanding as ideas, and ideas such as sensations
are described as being in the mind.
1691: Locke lived
as a guest of Lady Masham and Sir Francis Masham at Oates in Essex.
This period was beset with ill health from Asthma, etc but was also
the period when most of his major works were written. He became
a hero of the Whigs and met and discussed ideas of the day with
such notables as John Dryden and Isaac
Newton. He was referred to by Thomas Jefferson as one of the
three greatest men who ever lives along with Francis
Bacon and Newton and one passage from
the "Second Treatise on Government" is quoted verbatim
in the American Declaration of Independence. Locke believed that
human nature is inherently reasonable and tolerant and that everyone
had a natural right to defend his “Life, health, Liberty,
or Possessions".
1696 - 1700: Works
as Commissioner of Trade and Plantations.
Written Works:
- 1689:
" Epistola de Tolerantia" (published in Netherlands);
"First Letter on Toleration". (about religious toleration)
- 1690: "An
Essay Concerning Human Understanding". "Second Letter
on Toleration". "Two Treatises of Civil Government".
- 1692:
"Third Letter on Toleration".
- 1693:
"Thoughts Concerning Education".
- 1695:
"The Reasonableness of Christianity". "A Vindication
of the Reasonableness of Christ.".
- 1697: "A
Letter to the Bishop of Worcester".
- 1699: "Third
Letter to the Bishop of Worcester".
Marriage:
Never married.
Date and Place of Death:
28th October 1704, Oates, Essex.
Age at Death:
72.
Site of Grave:
Parish churchyard at High Laver, near Harlow,
Essex, where he had lived in the household of Sir Francis Masham
since 1691. Locke never married nor had children. Memorial in Christ
Church Cathedral, Oxford.
Places of Interest:
OXFORD:
Christ Church Cathedral
