ROBERT PLOT (1640-1696), English naturalist and antiquary, was born at Borden in Kent in 1640. He was educated at Wye, and at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1661, and proceeded to M.A. (1664) and D.C.L. (1671). He was distinguished for his folio work The Natural History of Oxfordshire (1677), in which various fossils, as well as other objects of interest, were figured and described. It was regarded as a model for many subsequent works. In 1677 Plot was elected F.R.S., and he was secretary for the Royal Society from 1682 to 1684. He was appointed in 1683 the first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and in the same year he became professor of chemistry. In 1686 he wrote The Natural History of Staf f ordshire. Two years later he became historiographerroyal. He died on the 30th of April 1696.