Edward Emily, MD, was descended from the old family of his name seated at Helmdon, in Northamptonshire. He was entered on the books at Leyden 8th October, 1640, being then twenty-three years of age, and he graduated doctor of medicine there the 10th November, 1640. He was admitted a Licentiate of the College, of Physicians 25th June, 1641. Having, on the 12th February 1641-2, been incorporated at Oxford, he was admitted a Candidate 22nd December, 1643, and a Fellow 8th May, 1647. He was Gulstonian lecturer in 1649, and Censor 1652 and 1653. He delivered the first Harveian oration in 1656, but was indiscreet in his language, and gave some offence to his colleagues.(1) He was physician to St Thomas’s hospital, and dying in November, 1657, barely forty years of age, was buried at St Olave’s, Silver-street.

He had married Elizabeth, the only surviving daughter of John Millington, of Wandsworth, gentleman, and left by her an only son, John, who became a distinguished merchant in the city. Wood records, but on what authority he omits to mention, that Dr Emily “in 1652 or 1653 held up his hand at the bar, at an assize held in Oxon, for coyning; but, being freed, he went to London, and practised his faculty in the parish of St Olave’s, Silver-street.” The dates, as extracted from our Annals, and the esteem in which he was held by his colleagues to the last, scarcely tally with Wood's statement.(2)

William Munk

[(1) “Comitia Minora Extraordinaria, 28 Julii, 1656. Ibique D^ri Emilie id culpæ datum est, quod in nuperâ Oratione inaugurali publicè in Collegio habitâ acriùs quàm decuit in rem militarem declamasset; adeoque præsens Reip: regimen collutulatum esset. D^r Emilie autem nihil à se malo animo dictum affirmabat, idque fide optimâ profitebatur. Perlecta est in eum finem illius oratio: atque porrò placuit, ut eadem denuò a censoribus et D^re Bate ac D^re Staynes perlustraretur.
“Videbatur etiam consultum, ut in posterum nulla hujusmodi Oratio habeatur in Collegio, nisi quam, mense saltem antea, Præses et Censorum aliquis perlegerint atque approbaverint.” – Annales, iv, 67.
(2) “Edvardus Emilie vix quadragenarius pridie Idus Novemb funera clausit sociorum hujus Anni (1667) et in Æde D Olavi, Silver street conditus est. Defuncti lectum prælucentibus funalibus, eo prosequebantur, præter alios, Cicestrensis (ut sunt tempora) sine Episcopatu, Episcopus et totum medicum Collegium. Morborum erat indagator sagax, eventus provisor anxius, et medendi fælix quod pulicè testatum fecit sæpissimè in D Thomæ cui præerat, nosocomio. Proxime etiam se dederat egregie in defungendo munere suspectæ prosectionis Gulstonianæ; ubi obiter de Atomis agebat nom minus eruditè quamde Anatomicis. Summum; nihil illi, præter tempus defuit ad magnum decus in arte nostra adipiscendum; nec potuit non ampla messis sequi hujusmodi herbescentem segetem.” – Bustorum aliquot Reliquiæ. auth. Baldv. Hamey.]