If he was not privately tutored, Gilbert probably went to Colchester Grammar School, chartered in 1539 and one of many to be set up or expanded at the time. The education system also expanded, given the greater need for administrators, the expansion of middle-class families looking to advance their sons and the disposable income to fund education.

Gilbert’s father Jerome took his place in the expanding legal system as a minor judge, the recorder of Colchester. Some of this wealth funded the Tudor expansion of government and the availability of offices. Government revenues had also been greatly augmented by the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, with the sale of confiscated land to royal favourites and clerical incomes redirected from the pope to the monarch. Indeed, from the 1550s Protestants fled to England from the Spanish Hapsburg armies in the Low Countries, and many Flemish weavers settled in Colchester, forming a “Dutch Quarter” and a visible sign of religious persecution. Colchester was better connected with Holland than with northern or western England. He thereby acquired knowledge of sailing, and he knew the tides and winds along the route. Gilbert would have travelled between Colchester and London by boat. Trade links, coupled with the difficulties of travel overland, meant that Colchester was surprisingly well-connected by sea with both London and Europe.

Gilbert was born in Colchester, Essex, a wool town which had boomed to become England’s 12th richest in 1524. A major source of that growth was the wool industry, in particular the flourishing export trade with continental Europe. This is the main reason why Elizabeth’s reign saw England become a significant power on the international stage. Gilbert had the luck to live in an era when the English economy underwent sustained growth. He was an Elizabethan, and many aspects of his life and work reflect the Elizabethan age. He died on November 30th 1603, only a few months after the queen whom he had risen to serve as royal physician. William Gilbert (1544-1603) was 14 when Elizabeth was crowned in 1558. History Home > Gilbert Home > Gilbert's England Gilbert's England - William Gilbert Website,Department of History, Lancaster Universityĭr Stephen Pumfrey, Department of History, Furness College, Lancaster University, LA1 4YG UK

The Noble Edge by Christopher Gilbert