Thomas Tryon
Who was Thomas Tryon?
English writer (1634–1703)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Thomas Tryon (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Thomas Tryon was born on September 6, 1634, in Bibury, Gloucestershire, England. He grew up in modest conditions that influenced his lifelong interest in the welfare of common people and animals. Tryon started out as a shepherd before becoming an apprentice hat maker in London, a trade he pursued with success. Despite having little formal education, he taught himself to read and write, setting the stage for his later work as an author and social commentator.
In the 1660s, Tryon spent time in Barbados as a merchant, which gave him firsthand exposure to slavery and strengthened his opposition to it. This period was key in solidifying his ethical beliefs. Upon returning to England, he joined the Behmenists, followers of the German mystic Jakob Böhme, whose views on diet and health aligned with Tryon's developing philosophy.
Starting in the 1680s, Tryon published books promoting vegetarianism, temperance, clean living, and a Pythagorean diet without meat and alcohol. His best-known work, The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness, came out in 1683 and argued that avoiding meat, alcohol, and tobacco was crucial for both physical and spiritual health. He used a mix of practical advice, medical arguments, and religious beliefs to reach a broad audience.
Tryon also spoke out against the poor treatment of enslaved people in the British colonies. In books like Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen-Planters of the East and West Indies, published in 1684, he voiced the perspective of enslaved Africans through imagined dialogues. He criticized plantation brutality and argued against slavery on humanitarian grounds. His writings made him one of the earliest English voices to morally oppose slavery, long before the abolitionist movement took hold.
He died on August 21, 1703, leaving a legacy of work on nutrition, medicine, animal welfare, slavery, and workers' rights. Although largely forgotten after his death, he has gained renewed attention for anticipating movements that gained steam in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As a self-educated tradesman who became a prolific writer and reformer, Tryon offers a unique glimpse into the social and intellectual life of Restoration and early Augustan England.
Before Fame
Thomas Tryon was born in rural Gloucestershire in the mid-seventeenth century, a time of great change in England due to civil war, the execution of the king, and religious upheaval. He spent his early years taking care of sheep and had no formal schooling. However, determined to learn, he taught himself to read and write. As a young man, he moved to London to become an apprentice in the hat-making trade.
His journey as a writer started when he embraced the ideas of Jakob Böhme and became convinced that diet and lifestyle were linked to both physical health and spiritual well-being. Working as a merchant in Barbados, he became socially conscious and gained firsthand knowledge of colonial life. By the time he started publishing in the 1680s, he had years of hands-on experience as a craftsman, merchant, and traveler, which gave his self-help writings genuine credibility.
Key Achievements
- Published The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness in 1683, one of the earliest popular English-language defenses of a vegetarian diet
- Wrote Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen-Planters of the East and West Indies in 1684, an early moral argument against colonial slavery
- Influenced Benjamin Franklin's adoption of vegetarianism, as Franklin recorded in his autobiography
- Produced more than a dozen books on health, diet, temperance, and social reform despite having no formal education
- Articulated an early framework for animal rights by arguing that animals possessed sensory and emotional lives deserving of moral consideration
Did You Know?
- 01.Tryon taught himself to read and write as a young adult after spending his childhood as an illiterate shepherd in Gloucestershire.
- 02.Benjamin Franklin acknowledged reading Tryon's vegetarian writings in his autobiography and credited them with inspiring him to adopt a meatless diet for a period in his youth.
- 03.Tryon wrote some of his anti-slavery passages in the voice of enslaved Africans speaking directly to their masters, an unusual rhetorical technique for the 1680s.
- 04.He worked as a hat maker throughout much of his adult life and ran a successful business in London even while producing his extensive writings.
- 05.Tryon advocated against the consumption of tobacco at a time when the substance was widely regarded as medicinally beneficial in England.
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