Background
Thomas Bodley was born in 1545 at Exeter, England, United Kingdom. During the reign of Queen Mary, his father, John Bodley, being obliged to leave the kingdom on account of his Protestant principles, went to live at Geneva.
Thomas Bodley was born in 1545 at Exeter, England, United Kingdom. During the reign of Queen Mary, his father, John Bodley, being obliged to leave the kingdom on account of his Protestant principles, went to live at Geneva.
On the accession of Queen Elizabeth he returned with his father to England, and soon after entered Magdalen College, Oxford.
In 1563 he took his B. A. degree, and was admitted a fellow of Merton College.
In 1585 Bodley was entrusted with a mission to form a league between Frederick II of Denmark and certain German princes to assist Henry of Navarre.
The essential difficulties of his mission were complicated by the intrigues of the queen's ministers at home, and Bodley repeatedly begged that he might be recalled.
He was finally permitted to return to England in 1596, but finding his preferment obstructed by the jarring interests of Burleigh and Essex, he retired from public life.
In 1598 his offer to restore the old library was accepted by the university. The library was later named the Bodleian Library in his honour.
Today the Bodleian is one of six such libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Bodley not only used his private fortune in his undertaking, but induced many of his friends to make valuable gifts of books.
He was buried in the choir of Merton College chapel where a monument of black and white marble was erected to him.
Thomas Bodley was married to Anne Ball, a wealthy widow, and he left no children.