Longevity

The oldest man of modern times was Thomas Carn, if we may rely on the parish register of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, where it is recorded that he died in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, aged 207. He was born in 1381, in the reign of Richard II., lived in the reigns of ten sovereigns, and died in 1588. Old Jenkins was only 160 when he died, and remembered going (when he was a boy of twelve) with a load of arrows, to be used in the battle of Flodden Field. Parr died at the age of 152. William Wakley (according to the register of St. Andrew’s church, Shifnal, Salop) was at least 124 when he died. He was baptised at Idsal 1590, and buried at Adbaston, November 28, 1714, and he lived in the reigns of eight sovereigns. Mary Yates, of Lizard Common, Shifnal, married her third husband at the age of 92, and died in 1776, at the age of 127.