WIM.IAM ClI.Iil'.RT. 5t 



Fuller, in ciuimcrating the worthies who have adorned the county 

 of Essex, ([uaintly writes of him as follows: ^^ Mahomet's totnbe at 

 Afec/iti is said strangely to /uj/ii:; up, attracted by some invisible Load, 

 stone ; but the memory of this Doctor will never fall to the ground, 

 which his incomparable book ' De Magnete ' will support to eternity." 



What manner of man this was, and why we ascribe to him 

 honours so unique, it is our present task to set forth. 



AN'illiam Gilbert, or Gilberd, as his name is sometimes spelled, 

 was born, in 1540, in Colchester, of which ancient borough his 

 father, Hierom Gilberd, was at one time Recorder. 



Of his boyhood little or nothing is known ; indeed it is sur- 

 prising that there is little to chronicle about so great a man beyond 

 the dates of a few salient events in his career. In May, 1558, 

 being then eighteen years old, he matriculated at St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, at which university he remained for eleven years. At 

 the end of 1560 he proceeded to his bachelor's degree; and on 

 March 21st, 156^, he was admitted as a Fellow on Symson's Founda 

 tion. In 1564 he "commenced" M.A. For the two following 

 years he was mathematical examiner in his college, and appears to 

 have turned his attention to medicine; for on May 13th, 1569, he 

 was admitted M.D. ; and on December 29th of the same year was 

 elected to a Senior Fellowship. After this he left England to travel 

 in foreign countries. His precise course of travel is unknown ; but 

 he made the acquaintance of many persons of distinction in the 

 great historic universities, with some of whom he is known to have 

 been subsequently in correspondence. Passages in his published 

 works show him to have resided in Mantua, Venice, and other 

 cities ; and his knowledge of geography was very considerable. He 

 returned to England in 1573, and was at once made a Fellow of the 

 Royal College of Physicians. On November 27th, 1577, was 

 granted to him the coat of arms which is figured behind the title- 

 page of his book, and was subsequently emblazoned in carved stone 

 upon his tomb. From 1581 till 1590 he was Censor of the Royal 

 College: he was its Treasurer from 1587 to 1591, and again from 

 1597 to' 1599. In 1600 he was made President, an honour which 

 he did not long retain, as he died on November 3rd, 1603, aged 

 sixty-three years. He was never married ; but the name of the 

 family was preserved by his four brothers, one of whom, by a curious 

 circumstance also named William, was a proctor in the Court of Arches. 



Seventy years later there was living at Burnt, Ely, another 



K 2 



