1702 The 'Aspirin' Man

click Dennis Claydon for the life of Dennis

click Edward Stone (The Aspirin Man) for more about Edward and the Stone family

Research by Dennis Claydon

Revd. Edward Stone 'The Aspirin Man'

For two and a half centuries the Stone family quietly prospered as yeoman in Lacey Green, due largely to careful husbandry and a series of wise marriages. The birth of a son, Edward, born to Edward and Elizabeth Stone on the 5" November 1702, therefore occasioned much rejoicing.

Edward’s Mother sadly died while he was still an infant, but his Father remarried, a daughter of John Grubb, Lord of the Manor of Princes Risborough. In 1716 Edward Senior purchased the Manor of Owlswick, in the Parish of Monks Risborough and thereafter styled himself ‘‘Gent’’. By this time the family were living in Princes Risborough.

Young Edward was intelligent, and in 1720 entered Wadham College, Oxford, graduating Master of Arts in 1727. He became ordained, serving a curacy at Saunderton. Returning to Wadham as a Fellow in 1730, he filled, in rotation, most of the College’s posts. In 1738 he was appointed Rector of Horsenden, a Living which he retained for the rest of his life.

He married, resigned his Fellowship in 1741, and was inducted as Rector of Drayton, near Banbury. He built a house for himself overlooking Chipping Norton, where he lived with his son after the death of his wife in 1751. He became active in local affairs as a Justice of the Peace. He died in 1768 and at his own request was buried at Horsenden.

For many years Edward Stone suffered from intermittent fevers, for which he sought relief in herbal remedies. He believed that the remedy for his disorder would be found in proximity to its cause; if his fevers were induced by damp, then the cure would be found nearby. He experimented with the powdered dried bark of the willow tree and discovered that this produced dramatic results. In 1763 he wrote an account of his discovery, which was later published. Little notice of this publication was taken at the time, but in fact, Edward Stone had stumbled upon salicylic acid, the basis of our modern aspirin. We now recognise that the boy born in Lacey Green had set up a major landmark in medical history.

1702 The 'Aspirin' Man
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