Page 43 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

Robert Boyle’s diagrams
together these experimenters embarked
on an ambitious and wide-ranging set of
projects: building beehives with glass
observation walls, designing accurate
micrometer scales for optical instruments,
testing new farming methods, explaining
the phases of Saturn, developing new drugs,
producing artificial rainbows, inventing
BRIDGEMAN automata. Not all of their trials were
successful, and not all of them were what
cians who taught there had worked closely
would nowadays be called scientific, but they with local artisans on practical problems
The Story of Science & Technology
of his apparatus, including
his first air pump (1660).
Boyle’s experiments with
the pump helped debunk
the Aristotelian theory that
a vacuum is impossible
such as ship design and terrestrial magne-
tism, vital for improving navigational
compasses. Gradually, the ethos of the
school changed as experimental philoso-
phers were appointed to the staff and the
latest scientific discoveries were discussed
at informal sessions.
Historians have failed to reconcile various
versions of exactly what did happen during
the late 1650s, but the outcome is clear:
Gresham College became the Royal Society’s
first home. The first meeting took place there
on 28 November 1660, soon after Charles II
had been restored to the throne, when a
group of 12 gentlemen – including several
royalists – clubbed together after a lecture
given by Wren, the school’s professor of
astronomy. This was no impromptu
gathering, but a pre-planned event at which
some important rules and regulations were
laid down before impressing on the king
what benefits he might reap from a “Society
for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall
Experimental Learning”. Over the next
couple of years, the founders recruited
additional members and further formalised
the structure before consolidating their
status as ‘The Royal Society of London’.
Rather than being a scholarly assembly of
dedicated scientists, the Royal Society
resembled a club for leisured gentlemen.
According to Sprat, it was a democratic
institution that welcomed contributions
“not onely by the hands of Learned and
profess’d Philosophers; but from the Shops
of Mechanicks; from the Voyages of
Merchants; from the Ploughs of
Husbandmen.” However, the high subscrip-
tion charge and metropolitan location
effectively restricted the active membership
to wealthy Londoners. This supposedly open
institution faced another challenge when
Margaret Cavendish, a wealthy aristocrat
and prolific author, decided to visit the
Society in 1667. Boyle reluctantly agreed to
were the products of a collaborative research perform some experiments for her, but she
community. was the last woman allowed to enter the
Although Sprat set himself up as the Royal meeting rooms before the 20th century.
Society’s historian, his account of its To satisfy the Fellows’ demand for
beginnings glosses over a second important entertainment as well as education, Robert
centre of activity – Gresham College, Hooke was appointed curator of experi-
just across the Thames from the naval ments, the first salaried scientific post in
dockyard at Deptford. Since its opening in Britain. His research was geared towards
1597, the university-educated mathemati- devising novel demonstrations that would
reinforce the Baconian ethic of gaining
knowledge through systematic investigation
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