Background
Robert Child was born c. 1613. He was the son of John Child, a gentleman of good estate, of Northfleet, Kent.
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Robert Child
Edit ProfileEducation
He matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1628, graduated A. B. in 1632, A. M. in 1635, and went abroad to study medicine, first at Leyden and then at the University of Padua, where he received the degree of doctor of medicine in 1638.
Career
During his sojourn on the Continent he traveled widely in Italy and France and possibly visited other countries, gathering a mass of information on the arts of husbandry. Sometime between 1638 and 1641 he came to New England, and journeyed "painefully on foot from Plantation to Plantation, " observing "Havens, situation, strength, Churches, Townes, number of Inhabitants" and such natural phenomena as flights of pigeons, musquash, Indian corn, "Cramberries, " "very pleasant in Tarts, " the use of fish for fertilizer, and wine produced from the native grapes, boiled "pumpions, " and parsnips. On his return to England he corresponded with the younger John Winthrop, sending him notices of books, especially on the chemistry and alchemy of their common interest, visiting France to learn more of vinegrowing and raising funds for Winthrop's proposed iron-works. In 1645 he returned to Boston with books for the college, funds for the iron project, and certain ideas for the reform of New England polity. There were many colonists in Massachusetts Bay who were dissatisfied with the control exercised by the Massachusetts authorities. From these Child drew six, among them Samuel Maverick, to join him in the "Remonstrance and Humble Petition" presented to the General Court in May 1646. The petitioners, after depicting the gloomy state of the colony under the rule of arbitrary magistrates, asked that the laws of England be established in Massachusetts, that all "truely English, " church members or not, be given the rights of freemen, and that all members of the Church of England be accepted into the New England churches or allowed to form their own. If denied, they threatened an appeal to Parliament. In the well-founded belief that what was really sought was the opportunity to appeal, the colonial leaders sent Edward Winslow to England to handle this as well as the troubles raised by Samuel Gorton. At its November meeting the Court fined Child £50, and the others in less amounts, for their contempt and threat of appeal. As Child himself was about to sail, his room was searched and his papers seized. Among them were appeals to the Commissioners for Plantations, asking liberty of conscience, settled churches (on the Presbyterian model) and the imposition of the oath of allegiance and the Presbyterian Covenant, with a list of queries on the validity of the Massachusetts Charter. Child was threatened with imprisonment in irons for his contumacious bearing and was fined £200, his associates again being let off more lightly. Somehow he discharged the fine and returned to England. Winslow had already won his case before the Commissioners, who upheld the authority of the Charter government. Child's brother John, a major in the Parliamentary forces and an ardent Presbyterian, defended the Remonstrant in New-Englands Jonas (1647), and Winslow presented the colony's case in New Englands Salamander Discovered (1647). In a more lively altercation, Child boxed the ear of a critic who reproached him for calling the New Englanders rogues and knaves, and made amends by giving £15 for their poor. Child was willing to admit that New England was not ready to welcome him again, though he had some disposition to return. He still corresponded with Winthrop, writing of books and inventions and current news, of his experiments and plans to establish an academy in Ireland or to follow "studyes and experiences" at home with several gentlemen of "Curiositye & Learning. " For his friend Samuel Hartlib he wrote "A Large Letter Concerning the Defects and Remedies of English Husbandry, " which makes almost the whole of Samuel Hartlib His Legacie. The work is full of suggestions and information gleaned from wide and varied reading and travel. Beside the enumeration of methods and products that England could profitably borrow from the Old and the New World, he urged the foundation of a "Colledge of Experiments" and a sort of information bureau for new ideas. Shortly after, he went to Ireland, probably to carry on projects for the development of a friend's estates, and died there, between February and May 1654. Child's interest in alchemy had a curious aftermath. George Starkey or Stirk, empiric, in his preface to The Marrow of Alchemy (1654), which was ascribed to Eiren'us Philalethes, transmuter of gold, spoke of a friend in New England who had furnished him the adept's manuscripts. This friend and Eiren'us himself, both probably the creation of Starkey's imagination, were identified with Child, and the statement was repeated in histories of alchemy down to the twentieth century.
