Frederick Clod (or Clodius) (1625 – after 1661), was a physician and "mystical chemist" of German extraction. He lived in a sizeable house (taxed on eight hearths) in Axe Yard, London, next door to the Hartlibs, whose daughter Mary he married in 1660. He was also a neighbour to the diarist Samuel Pepys, who mentions him several times. He was a minor figure in scientific circles and a friend of

Robert Boyle Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of ...

, to whom he supplied some very varied recipes. He came to England in 1652, having been recommended to Samuel Hartlib by

Johann Moriaen Johann Moriaen (born Nuremberg c.1591-1668) was a German alchemist and early chemist, known as an associate of Samuel Hartlib. He was active in recruiting for Hartlib's network of intellectuals, the Hartlib Circle, and communicating with them. He w ...

. He had been in the service of Frederick III of Denmark, collecting "Rarities", and himself was a native of

Holstein Holstein (; nds, label=Northern Low Saxon, Holsteen; da, Holsten; Latin and historical en, Holsatia, italic=yes) is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is the southern half of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of German ...

.W.R.R. Newman and L.M. Principe, ''Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry'' (University of Chicago Press, 2002). He presided at the wedding of his sister-in-law Nan Hartlib to Johannes Rothe in 1660. Pepys, a guest at the wedding, describes it as a social event of great magnificence. This suggests that Clod was a man of some wealth, since the Hartlibs were then living in dire poverty ("Nan will have nothing in the world" Pepys remarked), and Nan's father could not possibly have paid for the wedding.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clod, Frederick English alchemists German alchemists Year of death unknown Year of birth unknown 17th-century alchemists