Old Tom Parr

Thomas Parr (died 14 November 1635) was an Englishman who was said to have lived for 150 years. He is often referred to simply as Old Parr or Old Tom Parr.

A portrait of Parr hangs at Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, with an inscription which reads “Thomas Parr died at the age of 152 years 9 months” “The old old very old man or Thos Parr son of John Parr of Winington in the Parish of Alberbury who was borne in the year 1483 in Rayne of King Edward IV being 152 yeares old in the year 1635”. The portrait was once in the collection of the Leighton family of Loton Park, which is in Parr's home parish of Alberbury.

Records vary, but Parr was allegedly born around 1483 in the parish of Alberbury, Shropshire. He had two children, both of whom died in infancy. He existed and even thrived on a diet of “subrancid cheese and milk in every form, coarse and hard bread and small drink, generally sour whey”, as William Harvey wrote. … "On this sorry fare, but living in his home, free from care, did this poor man attain to such length of days".

Parr purportedly had an affair when he was over 100 years old and fathered a child born out of wedlock. After the death of his first wife, he married his child's mother at the alleged age of 122.

As news of his reported age spread, 'Old Parr' became a national celebrity and was painted by Rubens and Van Dyck. In 1635, Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel, visited Parr and brought him to London to meet King Charles I. Charles asked what Parr had done that was greater than any other man, and the latter replied that he had performed penance (for his affair) at the age of 100.

Parr was treated as a spectacle in London, but the change in food and environment apparently led to his death. The king arranged for him to be buried in Westminster Abbey on 15 November 1635. The inscription of his gravestone reads:

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Wikipedia