Sir Thomas Chaloner (1559–1615) was an English naturalist.
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He was the son of statesman and poet Sir Thomas Chaloner. He was tutor to Prince Henry, son of James I, and was also responsible for introducing alum manufacturing to England.[1] He was Member of Parliament for St Mawes in 1586 and for Lostwithiel in 1604. His third son was the Parliamentarian, Regicide Thomas Chaloner.
After the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, in 1540, the lands of Gisborough Priory were given to Thomas's father. At the end of the 16th century, Chaloner travelled to Italy and visited the alum works in the Papal States.[2] Having a great interest in the study of plants, he recognised that certain plants grew wherever the minerals responsible for the formation of alum were present in the soil. From this he recognised that the rock from which the alum was made was similar to that abundant in several areas in and around his Guisborough estate, in present day Redcar and Cleveland. Alum was a very important product at that time, used internationally, in curing leather, fixing dyed cloths and for medicinal uses. Up to this period the Vatican, and Spain, two countries in conflict with England, had maintained virtual monopolies on the production and sale of the product.
Chaloner secretly brought some of the Pope's workmen to England to develop a thriving alum industry in Yorkshire. Once the alum industry around Whitby had taken root, the English Crown imposed its own monopoly - imports from abroad were banned. Although the methods were laborious, England became self-sufficient in alum.[3][4]