Early Life
Bancroft was born on 9 January 1744 in Westfield, Massachusetts. His father died of an epileptic seizure when Bancroft was only two years old, and his mother had to support the family alone. His mother remarried five years later, and they moved to Connecticut to live with his stepfather, David Bull.
In Connecticut, Bancroft studied under Silas Deane, a schoolmaster who later became an important politician and diplomat. At the age of sixteen, Bancroft was apprenticed to a physician in Killingworth, Connecticut, but ran away after a few years. Many years later, Bancroft returned and repaid his debt to his former master.
On 14 July 1763, Bancroft departed the colonies for British Guiana, where he became a doctor on a plantation. He soon expanded his practice to multiple plantations and wrote a study of the local environment. His discovery that the torpedo fish discharged electricity is notable. Bancroft grew tired of South America and left in 1766. He spent a year traveling between North America and South America before leaving for London.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)