Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
If you would like to write a summary for this topic, email phil [at] gyford [dot] com
Wikipedia
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“The Royal Society of London is claimed to be the oldest learned society still in existence. It was founded in 1660.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_SocietyThis is an exciting introduction to a body of some influence in the years to come. Charles II was a supporter and interested party for some time, before eventually losing interest.
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Early history of the Royal Society:
The history of science since 1660 is closely intertwined with the story of the Royal Society.
The origins of the Royal Society lie in an “invisible college” of natural philosophers who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss the ideas of Francis Bacon. Its official foundation date is 28 November 1660, when 12 of them met at Gresham College after a lecture by Christopher Wren, the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and decided to found -
Robert Hooke
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/discovery/revolutions/hooke_robert_beavon_01.shtml
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A wonderful link here, about some musical experiments conducted by the Royal Society. I shall also post this in the ‘music’ section, as our man Pepys is mentioned in that context in this link. I’ll also paste the article in case the link disappears.
http://theowljournal.com/article.php?issue=7&number=1&type=print&comments=1
Mr Birchensha’s Ear
by Benjamin WardhaughIt is the afternoon of Wednesday, 10th August, 1664. We
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Dr. John Wallis:
The Origin of The Royal Society, 1645-1662 -
The Royal Society
Anyone interested in a discussion about the beginnings of the RS check the BBC site below from the programme In Our Time and listen to the archive.
One of the contributors is Lisa Jardine the writer of The Curious Life of Robert Hooke.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20060323.shtml
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“For many years, the Royal Society maintained a museum which, at one time, contained “the stones taken out of Lord Belcarre’s heart [ donated 11 April 1666 ] in a silver box,”… “a petrified fish [ 13 June 1666], the skin of an antelope which died in St. James’ Park [ 25 July 1666 ], a petrified foetus [ 28 Nov 1666 ]” and “a bottle full of stag’s tears [ 22 Aug 1666].” The trustees of Gresham college assigned the long gallery as a home for these and other “rarities”; but, when the society, in 1781, migrated to Somerset house, the entire collection was handed over to the British Museum. The charter of the last named is dated 1753, and its beginnings were the library of Sir Robert Cotton, which the nation had purchased in 1700, and the collections of Sir Hans Sloane, which were now purchased with the proceeds of a lottery, set on foot for this purpose. The collections of this “General Repository,” as the act of 1753 called the museum, were kept together until the middle of the nineteenth century, when, after long delay, the natural history objects were transferred to South Kensington and housed in a building which, in all respects, was worthy of the Board of Works of the time.” http://www.bartleby.com/224/0831.html
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A New RS website:
http://trailblazing.royalsociety.org/
read the original proceedings from 1660’s to present in pdf format, incuding Hooke’s dog transfusion experiments.