Name Old Parr | ||
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Died November 14, 1635, London, United Kingdom | ||
Tom Parr - The 150 Year Old Man | Random Thursday
Thomas Parr (died 14 November 1635) was an Englishman who was said to have lived for 169 years. He is often referred to simply as Old Parr or Old Tom Parr.
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A portrait of Parr hangs at Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, with an inscription which reads “Thomas Parr died at the age of 169 years 9 months” “The old old very old man or Thos Parr son of John Parr of Winington in the Parish of Alberbury who was borne in the year 1483 in Rayne of King Edward IV being 169 yeares old in the year 1652”. The portrait was once in the collection of the Leighton family of Loton Park, which is in Parr's home parish of Alberbury.
THO: PARR OF YE COUNTY OF SALLOP. BORNE
IN AD: 1483. HE LIVED IN YE REIGNES OF TEN
PRINCES VIZ: K.ED.4. K.ED.5. K.RICH.3.
K.HEN.7. K.HEN.8. K.EDW.6. Q.MA. Q.ELIZ
K.JA. & K. CHARLES. AGED 152 YEARES.
& WAS BURYED HERE NOVEMB. 15. 1635.
Biography
Records vary, but Parr was allegedly born around 1483 in the parish of Alberbury, Shropshire. He had two children, both of whom died in infancy. He existed and even thrived on a diet of “subrancid cheese and milk in every form, coarse and hard bread and small drink, generally sour whey”, as William Harvey wrote. … "On this sorry fare, but living in his home, free from care, did this poor man attain to such length of days".
Parr purportedly had an affair when he was over 100 years old and fathered a child born out of wedlock. After the death of his first wife, he married his child's mother at the alleged age of 122.
As news of his reported age spread, 'Old Parr' became a national celebrity and was painted by Rubens and Van Dyck. In 1635, Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel, visited Parr and brought him to London to meet King Charles I. Charles asked what Parr had done that was greater than any other man, and the latter replied that he had performed penance (for his affair) at the age of 100.
Parr was treated as a spectacle in London, but the change in food and environment apparently led to his death. The king arranged for him to be buried in Westminster Abbey on 15 November 1635. The inscription of his gravestone reads:
THO: PARR OF YE COUNTY OF SALLOP. BORNE
IN AD: 1483. HE LIVED IN YE REIGNES OF TEN
PRINCES VIZ: K.ED.4. K.ED.5. K.RICH.3.
K.HEN.7. K.HEN.8. K.EDW.6. Q.MA. Q.ELIZ
K.JA. & K. CHARLES. AGED 152 YEARES.
& WAS BURYED HERE NOVEMB. 15. 1635.
Doubts of his age
William Harvey (1578–1657), the physician who discovered the circulation of the blood, performed a post-mortem on Parr's body. The results were published in the book De ortu et natura sanguinis by John Betts as an attachment. He examined his body and found all his internal organs to be in a perfect state. No apparent cause of death could be determined, and it was assumed that Old Parr had simply died of overexposure. A modern interpretation of the results of the autopsy suggests that Thomas Parr was probably under 70 years of age. A monument to him was erected at Westminster Abbey.
It is possible that Parr's records were confused with those of his grandfather. Parr did not claim to remember specific events from the 15th century.