Thoms, Records of Longevity

In his pioneering study Human Longevity its facts and its fictions from 1873 William J. Thoms set up criteria for age validation, stressing the fact that the burden of proof in these cases should rest with those who put forward the age-claims, rather than with those who dared disbelieve the amazing age-claims of supercentenarians. The majority of centenarians whose ages were examined by Thoms were his contemporaries or near-contemporaries, but Thoms also examined the legends of these three famous long-livers.

Mr. Thoms, in his Records of Longevity, denies the truth of Parr's great age. Englishman William J. Thoms, who studied aging in the latter half of the 19th century, records an interesting story about Thomas Parr, who claimed to be 152 years old. Parr supposedly lived from 1483 to 1635 and was received in the court of Charles I as the world's oldest living human being. Parr was said to continue working in the fields until he was 130 and to enjoy sexual relations until he was 140. He remained vigorous until he decided to leave Shropshire and travel to London, where he promptly died from "frantic merrymaking."

Thoms' research led him to conclude that Parr's story was fueled by the earl of Arundel, a courtier who wanted to regain favor with the king. Harvey probably became involved because he owed the earl a favor. The actual autopsy report revealed that Harvey made it clear he was responsible only for the technical matter and all else was "furnished by the person who accompanied Parr to London." That person was the earl of Arundel.

No doubt Thomas Parr was very old. However, being the third generation of Thomas Parrs living in the same homestead, he probably, deliberately or inadvertently, picked up the birth date of his own grandfather. Nonetheless, Parr is still cited as a legitimate or probable supercentenarian in a number of record books, principally because Harvey seemed to say it was so.

Though several sceptical individuals, denying the possibility of the life of man being protracted beyond the period of a hundred years, have maintained that no such instance of longevity can be produced, there is abundant and satisfactory evidence to confute this statement, and establish indisputably the fact of the existence of numerous centenarians both in ancient and modern times. One of these instances, that of 'Old Parr,' whose extreme and almost antediluvian age has become proverbial, rests on such well-authenticated grounds, that no reasonable doubt can be entertained as to