John Locke was born on August 29, 1632 to John Locke and Anne Keene (Fraser, 1890, p.2). He grew up in Somerset in a home called Beluton (Fraser, 1890, p. 1-2). At the time of his birth Charles I was king( Fraser,1890, p.2). Locke’s family consisted of Puritan parents, a father that was an attorney and a mother that reportedly died when he was a young boy (Fraser, 1890, p. 4-5). Locke also had a younger brother named Thomas, who was born in August of 1937 (Fraser, 1890, p.5). Thomas was also an attorney but died in early adulthood due to consumption (Fraser, 1890, p.5). Locke was a life long asthmatic and suffered from it especially as a child (Strathern, 1999, p.22). In 1642, when Locke was 10 years old, a civil war broke out and his father left to fight in it (Fraser, 1890, p.2).
Locke’s education varied widely. He started out not even attending a school and ended up studying at two of the most prestigious schools of his era. Locke was home schooled by his father for the first 14 years of his life (Fraser,1890, p.5). He didn’t attend a traditional grammar school because of civil unrest in Bristol and the outbreak of the civil war (Fraser, 1890, p.6). In 1646, Locke was admitted to Westminster school and would go onto study there for 6 years (Fraser, 1890, p.6). Strathern calls Westminster the finest school in the land at the time and comments that “ without such an education it is doubtful whether Locke would have had the opportunity to realize his exceptional talents” (Strathern, 1999, p.14). At Westminster, Locke was classmates with poet John Dryden (Strathern. 1999, p.14). Locke later studied at Oxford (Fraser, 1890, p. 8). Locke earned a Bachelor’s degree in medicine in 1674, after years of experimenting and practicing medicine (Fraser, 1890, p.19).