Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was born in London, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Gray's Inn, and rose through Elizabethan and Jacobean government to become Solicitor General, Attorney General and, in 1618, Lord Chancellor. In 1621 he was convicted of accepting bribes from litigants, fined, briefly imprisoned and barred from office; he spent his remaining years writing. His works include the Essays (1597, enlarged 1612 and 1625), The Advancement of Learning (1605) and Novum Organum (1620), which set out the inductive method underlying his reputation as a founder of modern science.