Cheney Culpeper

Sir Cheney Culpeper^[1] (1601 – 1663) was an English landowner, a supporter of Samuel Hartlib^[2], and a largely non-political figure of his troubled times^[3], interested in technological progress and reform.

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Landowner

After a legal training^[4], he was knighted in 1628. He had an estate at Great Wigsell, but only briefly^[5]. He owned Leeds Castle, in Kent, given to him by his father Sir Thomas Culpeper^[6]. He also bought Elmley^[7] Being later disinherited, he became heavily indebted.

Hartlib circle

Of the Hartlibians, he had most to do with Benjamin Worsley. He was interested in alchemy^[8], but most of all in agricultural topics^[9]. While on the Parliamentarian side, he was a moderate, against the more theocratic tendencies^[10]. He had contacts in Parliament^[11][12]; but insufficient clout to make a real difference to the attitude to Hartlib's projects^[13].

References

• Stephen Clucas, The correspondence of a XVII-century 'chymical gentleman': Sir Cheney Culpeper and the chemical interests of the Hartlib circle. Ambix 40, 1993. p147-170
• M. J.Braddick and M. Greengrass, editors, The Letters of Sir Cheney Culpepper 1641-1657 edited by in Seventeenth Century Political and Financial Papers, Camden Fifth Series volume 7 (1997)

Notes

1. ^ Cheyney Culpeper, Cheney Culpepper, Cheyney Culpepper, Cheney Colepeper, Cheyney Colepeper, Cheney Colepepper.
2. ^ Jennifer Stine has documented the exchange between Sir Cheney Culpeper and Hartlib, during which Culpeper repeatedly asked for his wife's recipe collection to be returned.[1]
3. ^ Hugh Trevor-Roper, Religion, the Reformation and Social Change (1967), p. 283.
4. ^ He was a B.A. of Hart Hall, Oxford, and a member of the Inner Temple, according to Robert F. Young, Bohemian Scholars and Students at the English Universities from 1347 to 1750, The English Historical Review, Vol. 38, No. 149 (Jan., 1923), pp. 72-84.
5. ^ [2], [3].
6. ^ [4]
7. ^ [5]; also Morgue and Godden[6], Atch Lench[7].
8. ^ John T. Young, Faith, Medical Alchemy and Natural Philosophy (1998), p. 234-6.
9. ^ [8] for comments on improved beehives.[9]
10. ^ In letters written to his friend Samuel Hartlib, shortly after he had read Gangraena, Cheney Culpeper described his efforts to get a petition from Kent that would attack any power not based on popular consent as embodied in the House of Commons, and oppose any compulsive Presbyterian church government. PDF, p. 372.
11. ^ J. P. Cooper, Social and Economic Policies under the Commonwealth, p. 125, in The Interregnum (1972, edited by G. E. Aylmer.
12. ^ Parliamentary appointment (as Cheyney Culpepper): [10]
13. ^ That Cheyney Culpeper and John Sadler were committed supporters and promoters of Hartlib and his schemes is beyond dispute, but their personal influence was not vast. Young, p. 248.