Edward Stone (natural philosopher)
English Anglican priest who discovered the active ingredient of aspirin
Edward Stone (1702–1768) was a Church of England cleric who discovered the active ingredient of aspirin.
Life
Edward Stone was born in Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, England, in 1702. His parents were Edward Stone, a gentleman farmer, and his first wife Elizabeth Reynolds. His mother having died, his father took a second wife, Elizabeth Grubb, in 1707; the Grubb family was to play a major role in Stone's life.
Stone went to Wadham College, Oxford, in 1720, where in 1730 he became a Fellow. In 1728 or 1729 he was ordained deacon and priest, and served as curate at Charlton-on-Otmoor.
From 1738 Stone held a living at Horsenden, Buckinghamshire, to which he was presented by John Grubb, brother to his stepmother. He married Elizabeth Grubb(e) at Mercers' Hall Chapel, Cheapside (a non-parochial church), London, on 7 July 1741: she was John Grubb's daughter. As was required at that period, Stone resigned as Fellow of Wadham on marrying.
In 1745, Stone became chaplain to Sir Jonathan Cope, 1st Baronet at Bruern Abbey and served various curacies around Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q352808. VIAF identifies the subject as 63883580. The Library of Congress control number is nr93038832. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1702, 1768, 1707 and 1720.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edward Stone (natural philosopher)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.