There was a (young) lady who swallowed a fly… or a spider? A curious 1657 entry from Anthony Wood’s diary

The diaries of 17th century Oxford antiquarian Anthony Wood offer a fascinating glimpse into academic and social life in the university city, with a mixture of history, commentary and anecdotal material. 

A new kind of feaver

One particularly curious entry caught my eye:

Memorandum, Friday, Aug 14 1657, Mrs Read of Ipston departed this life, who three weeks before her death was taken with a fit of vomitting and vomitted a live spider. Her name was Acton before she married.

This summer rages a new kind of feaver, especially in the country villages.


— Excerpt from The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Antiquary of Oxford (1632–1695), Described by Himself, Vol. I (1632–1663), collected from his diaries and other papers by Andrew Clark, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College, published 1891.

Concern for illness is a common theme in 17th-century diaries but I will assume the note about a live spider is drawn from local hearsay as opposed to being a symptom of a "new kind of feaver".

The Ipston in question is almost certainly Ipsden in South Oxfordshire. The Reades were the owners of the Ipsden estate at the time, making the death of a family member noteworthy enough for Wood to record. The woman in question appears to be Jane Acton, daughter of Thomas Acton, who married Edward Reade of Ipsden—son of Thomas Reade and Mary Cornewall—on 18 December 1651. It seems theirs was a brief marriage, ending in tragedy just six years later.

Location: Ipsden, Wallingford OX10, UK

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