Thomas Henshaw (alchemist)

Thomas Henshaw (1618–1700) was an English lawyer, courtier, diplomat and scientific writer. While not a published alchemist, he was a significant figure in English alchemical work from the 1650s onwards; he is known to have used the pen-name "Halophilus".

The son of Benjamin Henshaw and his wife Anne, and brother to Nathaniel Henshaw. he was baptised at St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street, City of London, on 15 June 1618. After attending school at Barnet and then at Cripplegate, London, under Thomas Farnaby, he was entered as commoner at University College, Oxford, in 1634, and remained there five years without taking a degree. At the suggestion of Obadiah Walker and Abraham Woodhead, he studied mathematics, a student of William Oughtred at Albury, Surrey for nine months from 1636, finding it more stimulating than the teaching of his tutor John Elmherst. He also knew the Rosicrucian scholar William Backhouse, who was another of Oughtred's pupils.

Henshaw entered the Middle Temple, and in 1637 became tutor there to John Evelyn, to become a lifelong friend, and his brothers. On the outbreak of the First English Civil War he joined Charles I at York. Soon afterwards he went to London, and was taken prisoner by the Parliamentarians.

Henshaw was allowed to leave England, on giving security not to join the king's army again, and sailed to Holland. He took part in a campaign under William II, Prince of Orange; and then entered the French army, in which he became major, and at some point served under Sir Robert Moray. He subsequently travelled through Spain, and on to Italy, where he lived at Rome, Venice and Padua. He spent a period from late 1644 as the travelling companion of John Evelyn, whom he had encountered at Pisa. They visited Athanasius Kircher's showy rooms in Rome together. When Evelyn moved on to Venice, Henshaw spent time accompanying the young Henry Howard. Evelyn, Henshaw and Francis Bramston were then together at Padua for a period.

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