John Harvey (astrologer)
John Harvey (1564–1592) was an English astrologer and physician. He was baptized on 13 February 1564 at Saffron Walden, Essex, the son of John Harvey, a master ropemaker, and the younger brother of Gabriel Harvey and Richard Harvey. He studied at Queens’ College, Cambridge, from 1578, earning a B.A. in 1580 and an M.A. in 1584. In 1587 Cambridge licensed him to practise medicine, and he worked as a physician in King’s Lynn, Norfolk. He is noted for the early use of the word topical in his writings (1588). In 1592 the writer Robert Greene mocked Harvey and his family, which led Gabriel Harvey to defend them in his Foure Letters. Gabriel described John as a capable, reputable physician who had earned an M.D. from Cambridge. John Harvey died in July 1592, aged 29, shortly after returning to Lynn from Norwich, and a Latin epitaph was written for him. A sonnet titled “John Harvey’s Welcome to Robert Greene” appears in Gabriel Harvey’s Foure Letters.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:58 (CET).