George Trosse

George Trosse (25 October 1631 – 1713) was an English nonconformist minister. He is best known for his autobiographical accounts of periods of mental illness he experienced in his younger years.

Early life The younger son of Henry Trosse, counselor-at-law, he was born at Exeter on 25 October 1631; his mother was Rebekah, daughter of Walter Burrow, a prosperous merchant and twice mayor of Exeter. His family had no Puritan leanings; his uncle Roger Trosse (1595–1674), rector (1618) of Rose Ash, Devon, was one of the sequestered clergy of the English Civil War. Trosse was intended for the practice of law; his father, dying early, left him his law library; but on leaving Exeter grammar school Trosse went into business.

In 1646 Trosse was sent to an English merchant at Morlaix in Brittany, who placed him for a year with Ramet, a Huguenot pastor at Pontivy, to learn French. Returning to Exeter in 1648, he was sent to a brother-in-law in London for introduction to a Portugal merchant. Having been made free of the Drapers' Company, he sailed for Porto where he remained for two and a half years. He returned to Exeter early in 1651. He attributed the attacks, in part, to demonic possession. His work, in which theology is used to describe madness, has been considered the first such psychological account of an episode.

The autobiography was abridged in the Life by Isaac Gilling, who made use also of a further manuscript, and of correspondence. Gilling gives an elaborate account of Trosse's ministry.

Family Trosse married (1680) Susanna, daughter of Richard White, an Exeter merchant, who survived him, without issue.