Also spelt Moufet, Mouffett, and Muffet. Second son of a haberdasher of Scottish descent. Educated at Merchant Taylors School, and at Cambridge University and Basle where he studied medicine obtaining a doctorate at the latter in 1578. Travelled widely in Europe before returning to England towards the end of 1580. Lived at first in Ipswich before moving to London and finally to Bulbridge near Salisbury where he was given a home as a pensioner by the Count and Countess of Pembroke. It was through the influence of the Earl that he obtained a seat in parliament as the member for Wilton, where he is buried. Moffet published various books and pamphlets but is included here because his Insectorum Theatrum, the first edition of which was published in 1634, contains the first account in English of beetles (he refers to earlier continental authorities) amounting to some 90 pages out of 326. The work was originally planned by Conrad Gesner (1516-1565) as the 6th volume of his Historia Animalium and it is likely that much of Moffet’s information came from an earlier unpublished MS compiled by Thomas Penny (1532-1588). The volume and its various re-issues and second edition (1658) are discussed by Lisney (1980), pp.4-9. Moffet also published a work on Silkwormes and their Flies . (MD 2/04)
Dates
1553 – 5 June 1604