Royal Society

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Maggie Gee
Her recent chapters in books include Beyond Ending in Bill Bryson 's Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society, 2010 (whose other contributors include Margaret Atwood and David Attenborough ), Living...
Family and Intimate relationships Anna Atkins
Anna's father, John George Children , was an amateur scientist during his years as a gentleman of leisure, and made a living from scientific work when that became necessary. He was twice Secretary of the...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Nihell
By 1754 she was back in London with her husband, who was apparently the James Nihell , surgeon-apothecary and Fellow of the Royal Society , from a distinguished medical family, who died on 1 June...
Family and Intimate relationships Selina Davenport
Her father, Captain Charles Granville Wheler , was a great-nephew of Sir George Wheler , a traveller, clergyman, scholar, and early member of the Royal Society , who had a family estate in Kent. (...
Family and Intimate relationships E. A. Dillwyn
Lewis Weston Dillwyn , EAD 's paternal grandfather and the Quaker son of a famous abolitionist, owned the Cambrian pottery in Swansea. In 1804 he became a fellow of the Royal Society on the...
Family and Intimate relationships Judith Drake
Judith was married to James Drake : Fellow of the Royal Society , physician and writer on medicine and politics, and they had at least two children, one of each sex.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Judith Drake
...
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Isham
Their brother, later Sir Justinian Isham (1611-75), became a royalist during the Civil War and a founder member of the Royal Society . He married in 1634, and his wife, Jane, had five babies (all...
Family and Intimate relationships Anna Margaretta Larpent
AML 's father, Sir James Porter , who as a young man had gone into business after a comparatively scanty education, later became a distinguished diplomat (he was British Ambassador at Constantinople when Anna Margaretta...
Family and Intimate relationships Deborah Norris Logan
George was grandson of James Logan , a wealthy Philadelphian fur trader, scientist and bibliophile. In England on a visit at the time of an eclipse of the sun on 22 May 1724, James wrote...
Family and Intimate relationships Bathsua Makin
Her father, Henry Reginald , was a schoolmaster in the parish of St Mary Axe, London, an author, and a friend of the poet Michael Drayton . He was reasonably prosperous, intellectually active, and...
Family and Intimate relationships Florence Marryat
Captain Frederick Marryat , FM 's father, was a distinguished naval officer renowned for conspicuous gallantry, a Fellow of the Royal Society and member of the Légion d'Honneur , a spectacular success as a novelist...
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Stewart
While she was successfully pursuing her writing, he was building up the University of Edinburgh 's Earth Science department, tripling its size. Among his many accomplishments and honours, he was elected a Fellow of the...
Family and Intimate relationships Mary More
Her son, Richard Waller , was an artist, poet, and natural philosopher or scientist. He served as Secretary to the Royal Society from 1687 to 1709, and edited posthumous works by Robert Hooke .
Makin, Bathsua et al. Educating English Daughters. Editors Teague, Frances et al., Iter Academic Press; Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2016.
108, 109
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Family and Intimate relationships Mary More
MM ' daughter, Elizabeth , was seventeen when she was married, on 17 April 1680, to Alexander Pitfield , a close friend and associate of her brother. Pitfield was treasurer to the Royal Society from...
Friends, Associates Margaret Cavendish
John Evelyn , as a member of the Royal Society , several times visited the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle (sometimes with his wife ) to arrange their visit to the Society.
Cavendish, Margaret. Paper Bodies: A Margaret Cavendish Reader. Editors Bowerbank, Sylvia and Sara Heller Mendelson, Broadview, 2000.
91

Timeline

18 May 1661: The group which later became the Royal Society...

Building item

18 May 1661

The group which later became the Royal Society received its first gift of a rarity for its Repository.
Todd, Janet. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. Rutgers University Press, 1997.
452n13

15 July 1662: The Royal Society was chartered by the king...

Building item

15 July 1662

The Royal Society was chartered by the king from the existing philosophic society centred on Gresham's College .
Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn. Editor De Beer, Esmond Samuel, Clarendon Press, 1955, 6 vols.
3: 266-7, 267n6
Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn. Editor De Beer, Esmond Samuel, Oxford University Press, 1959.
443

15 October 1662: John Evelyn made a presentation to the Royal...

Building item

15 October 1662

John Evelyn made a presentation to the Royal Society on the deforestation of England and the need to plant trees; this was the germ of his Sylva, Or A Discourse Of Forest Trees, which...

1665: The Royal Society, founded the previous year,...

Building item

1665

The Royal Society , founded the previous year, published its first number of Philosophical Transactions, the earliest scientific journal.
Cook, Chris, and John Wroughton. English Historical Facts, 1603-1688. Macmillan, 1980.
224
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

1668: Martha Taylor attracted attention for fasting:...

Building item

1668

Martha Taylor attracted attention for fasting: the first published account, largely in her own words, presented her abstinence as holy; an account for the Royal Society attacked both this text and Taylor herself.
Hollis, Karen. “Fasting Women: Bodily Claims and Narrative Crises in Eighteenth-Century Science”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
34
, No. 4, 1 June 2001– 2024, pp. 523-38.
525-7

28 January 1684: The Dublin Philosophical Society, recently...

Building item

28 January 1684

The DublinPhilosophical Society , recently founded on the model of the Royal Society of London, met to formulate rules and draw up its first list of members.
Gilbert, Sir John Thomas. A History of the City of Dublin. McGlashan and Gill, 1859, 3 vols.
13
Hoppen, K. Theodore. The Common Scientist in the Seventeenth Century. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970.
26

5 July 1687: Sir Isaac Newton published Philosophiæ naturalis...

Writing climate item

5 July 1687

Sir Isaac Newton published Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica; it was the first work on the movements of the planets to back its statements with detailed mathematical calculations.
Schaffer, Simon. “Somewhat Divine”. London Review of Books, 16 Nov. 2000, pp. 30-1.
30-1
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
5 July 2012

1707: Hans Sloane, later President of the Royal...

Building item

1707

Hans Sloane , later President of the Royal Society , published the first volume of the work generally called Natural History of Jamaica, with its short, casual account of slavery, detailing but defending the...

1723: James Jurin, Secretary of the Royal Society,...

Building item

1723

James Jurin , Secretary of the Royal Society , published a pioneering work of statistical analysis, A Letter to the Learned Caleb Cotesworth . . . Containing A Comparison Between the Morality of the Natural...

20 November 1753: The Royal Society conferred its gold medal...

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20 November 1753

The Royal Society conferred its gold medal on Benjamin Franklin for his experiments with electricity.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
23 (1753): 587

1777: The Royal Society received another account...

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1777

The Royal Society received another account of a young woman refusing food, that of Janet Macleod of the county of Ross in Scotland, who had what was called an epileptic fit at fifteen...

22 October 1786: The Royal Society heard a paper on the practice...

Building item

22 October 1786

The Royal Society heard a paper on the practice of measuring babies' birthweights: for the first time in Britain, at a Dublin Lying-in Hospital.
Williams, Carolyn. “The Absurdity of the Ideas of Obstetric Writers: Birth Weight in A Modest ProposalThe Scriblerian, Vol.
xxvii
, No. 2, Department of English, Temple University, 1 Mar.–31 May 1995, pp. 121-3.
122

1825-1839: Catherine Gilbert, daughter of Davies Gilbert...

Writing climate item

1825-1839

Catherine Gilbert , daughter of Davies Gilbert (President of the Royal Society from 1828-1831), conducted most of the work of the small private printing press established by her father in their home at Eastbourne.
Cave, Roderick. The Private Press. Faber and Faber, 1971.
122-4

1830: Charles Babbage published Reflections on...

Writing climate item

1830

Charles Babbage published Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, an excoriating attack on the Royal Society and a call for science to be given a leadership role in British society, with proper...

1831: The Royal Society, considered the leading...

National or international item

1831

The Royal Society , considered the leading institution of natural science in Britain, started the publication of Proceedings of the Royal Society, which featured abstracts of members' papers.
Hellemans, Alexander, and Bryan Bunch. The Timetables of Science: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in the History of Science. Simon and Shuster, 1988.
296
Hobsbawm, Eric John. The Age of Revolution 1789-1848. Vintage, 1996.
280

Texts

Herschel, Caroline. Catalogue of Stars. Royal Society, 1798.
Newton, Sir Isaac. Opticks. Royal Society, 1704.