William Backhouse

For the agriculturalist, see William Ormston Backhouse.

Coat of arms of William Backhouse, 1658. From William Dugdale's The History of St. Pauls Cathedral in London. Backhouse is celebrated as a benefactor of the cathedral in this book. Both the depicted motto, "scache cache" (in modern French: "sache cacher" or, in English: "know to hide"), and the crest of an eagle clutching a serpent, have a distinctly alchemical flavor.[1][2][3][a]

William Backhouse (17 January 1593 – 30 May 1662) was an English philosopher, alchemist, astrologer, translator, and the esoteric mentor of Elias Ashmole.

Born into the wealthy Backhouse family, Backhouse enjoyed an education at Oxford, and was likely exposed to alchemical teachings and the Rosicrucian manifestos of the 1610s. He married Anne Richards in 1637/8, and had three children. By 1651, he had become the mentor of Elias Ashmole, taking him as his "spiritual son and heir", the role for which his is best remembered. The following exchange of alchemical knowledge and manuscripts has been described as having an effect on Ashmole that "cannot be overstated". This relationship flourished in an intense exchange of alchemical documents and information, unaffected by Backhouse's poor health and fear of identification in Ashmole's publications. Backhouse, predeceased by all his siblings and children, but one, died in 1662, leaving all his possessions to his daughter, Flower Backhouse, the last of the Backhouse family.

Only so much can be understood about Backhouse, for his devotion to esoteric knowledge, and his distaste for the public eye (in accordance with his motto). But the few contemporary sources that remain give a picture of Backhouse that shows him to be a "respected figure in a network of people involved in occult and philosophical studies" according to Jennifer Speake;[2] a "most renown'd chymist, Rosicrucian, and a great encourager of those that studied chymistry and astrology" according to Anthony à Wood;[4] and a "quiet, secretive man of an inventive mind [...] combining a gift for languages with a graceful poetic vein" according to C. H. Josten.[5]

  1. ^ a b Josten 1949, p. 25.
  2. ^ a b Speake 2004.
  3. ^ Dugdale, Sir William (1658). The history of St. Pauls cathedral in London, from its foundation until these times. London, England: Tho. Warren. p. 114.
  4. ^ Wood 1817.
  5. ^ Josten 1949, p. 33.


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