Sir William Petty

Paul Brewster on 4 Jul 2003   Link to this

William Petty was born May 26, 1623, at Romsey, in Hampshire, where his father was a poor clothier. Like many another English refugee during the Civil War, he made his way, by various shifts, to Utrecht and Leyden. There, as well as in Amsterdam and Paris, he studied languages, chemistry, and medicine. In 1648 the Parliamentary party, bent upon reorganizing Royalist Oxford, made him Fellow of Brasenose College, and soon afterwards Professor of Anatomy. Two years later he was further advanced to be physician for the army in Ireland, and soon became a confidant of Henry Cromwell, whom he served as clerk of the council at Dublin until shortly before the Restoration. While there he executed with great success the famous "Down Survey" of the forfeited lands of the rebellious Irish. Incidentally he speculated in land debentures and laid the foundations of his large fortune.

In 1661 he was knighted by Charles II; and, finding a little leisure for the first time in a decade, he turned his attention once more to science. He helped to organize the Royal Society, in whose prenatal activities he had participated at Oxford. He read several papers before it. He experimented at length with a "double bottom boat," which seems to have been a sort of catsmarsh. In 1666 he resumed his residence in Ireland. There lawsuits about his lands and the demands of the flourishing "industrial colony of Protestants" which he had established at Kenmare in Kerry took most of his time for the ensuing twenty years. He was able, however, to make repeated and prolonged visits to London, and to agitate with vigor for fiscal reforms in Ireland. But the exchequer of Charles II could ill afford to reject any proposal, however harmful to that island, which promised ready cash at Whitehall; and Petty's arguments in favor of the direct collection of taxes and of establishing a statistical office fell upon deaf ears.

The accession of James II, who as Duke of York and Lord High Admiral had taken an interest in Petty's shipbuilding experiments, greatly raised his hopes of ultimate success; and he put forth a dozen essays to prove his ease. But he was destined to renewed disappointment, and died December 16, 1687, his public aims unachieved.
From http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3...

vincent on 15 Nov 2003   Link to this

William Petty and Googling brings up reams of data for one....
http://www.thoemmes.com/dictionaries/petty.htm

vicenzo on 30 Mar 2005   Link to this

Petty Wm has had a very interesting Life, including early sailing days with being flogged, disabled and thus got a good education from French monks.
using his witts to win a duel.

vicenzo on 30 Mar 2005   Link to this

DR Petty had strong ties to Mr Barlow [he was the go between Mr P and Mr B]

vicenzo on 30 Mar 2005   Link to this

"...Petty's letter to Hartlib on education was his first publication but in the next year (1648) he patented a 'double writing' machine, which was a device for making copies of handwritten documents…”
http://www.thoemmes.com/dictionaries/petty.htm

He received the ok to get profits by H of L & H of C:

one Wm. Petty secured invention of Double and Multiple writing march 1648.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?com...

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?com...
name also spelt prettie

dirk on 31 Jul 2006   Link to this

See also:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~pillag...
[search for "Sir William Petty" -- without quotation marks]

Michael Robinson on 31 Jan 2007   Link to this

Petty is the subject of a "Life" by Aubrey:-

Richard Barber, ed., John Aubrey Brief Lives. London: 1975, pp. 246-252.

Pedro on 10 May 2008   Link to this

William Petty

The article from Wikipedia gives extensive information on Petty, but the great thing for me about the site is the hidden gems contributed by the annotators, and sometimes missed if confronted by the size of the Wikipedia article.

“He befriended Hartlib and Boyle, and he became a member of the London Philosophical Society, and possibly met John Milton. By 1651, he had risen to Professor of Anatomy at Brasenose College, Oxford and was also Professor of Music in London.”

Here, concerning Petty, is a gem from Lisa Jardine’s “The curious Life of Robert Hooke”…

“In December 1650, Willis and Petty had achieved instant notoriety when they discovered that the felon’s cadaver that they had gathered to dissect at Petty’s Buckley Hall Lodgings in the High Street was not in fact dead. Nan Greene, a hapless young woman who had been hanged for infanticide, was duly resuscitated and nursed back to health. Her revivers then petitioned the authorities successfully for a pardon, in light of the extraordinary nature of her miracle survival. Numerous broadsheets and poems were published, including witty verses by Walter Pope and Wren…On the strength of the publicity surrounding the Nan Greene miracle revival, Petty (hitherto a kind of freelance anatomy tutor, based at Brasenose College) was appointed Tomlins Reader in anatomy by the (Oxford) University.”

Terry Foreman on 6 Aug 2009   Link to this

In this 1982 edition of Brief lives By John Aubrey, ed. Richard Barber ( Boydell & Brewer, Limited) the life of Sir William Petty (1623-1687) is found on pp. 241-248 http://ur1.ca/8k6u "Search in the book" for William Petty.