Hooke was, by all accounts, a remarkably industrious man, and was at one time simultaneously the curator of the Royal Society and a member of its council, Gresham Professor of Geometry and Chief Surveyor to the City of London.
Hooke’s reputation was largely forgotten during the eighteenth century, and this is popularly attributed to a dispute with Isaac Newton over credit for his work on gravitation; Newton, as President of the Royal Society, did much to obscure Hooke, including, it is said, destroying (or failing to preserve) the only known portrait of the man. Hooke’s reputation was revived during the twentieth century through studies of Robert Gunther and Margaret ‘Espinasse, and after a long period of relative obscurity he is now recognised as one of the most important scientists of his age.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Biography
o 1.1 Early life
o 1.2 Oxford, Boyle
o 1.3 Watch escapement
o 1.4 Royal Society
o 1.5 Personality and disputes
* 2 Hooke the scientist
o 2.1 Mechanics
o 2.2 Microscopy
o 2.3 Astronomy
* 3 Hooke the architect
* 4 Likenesses
* 5 Commemorations
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 Further reading
* 9 External links
Biography
Hooke’s microscope, from an engraving in Micrographia.
Much of what is known of Hooke’s early life comes from an autobiography that he commenced in 1696, but did not complete. This was referenced by Richard Waller in his introduction to the The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke, M.D. S.R.S., printed in 1705. The work of Waller, along with John Ward’s Lives of the Gresham Professors and John Aubrey’s Brief Lives, form the major near-contemporaneous biographical accounts of Hooke.
Early life
Robert Hooke was born in 1635 in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight to John Hooke and Cecily Gyles. Robert was the last of four children, two sons and two daughters, and there was an age difference of seven years between him and the next youngest. Their father ecclesiastically served the Church of England, specifically as the curate of Freshwater’s Church of All Saints; his three brothers were also ministers. Robert Hooke was expected to succeed in his education and join the Church.
John Hooke also was in charge of a local school, and so was able to teach Robert, at least partly at home perhaps due to the boy’s frail health. He was a Royalist and almost certainly one of a groups who went to pay their respects to Charles II when he escaped to the Isle of Wight. Robert, too, grew up to be a staunch monarchist.
As a youth, Robert Hooke was fascinated by observation, mechanical works, and drawing, interests that would be pursued in various ways throughout his life. He dismantled a brass clock and built a wooden replica that, by all accounts, worked “well enough”, and he learned to draw, making his own materials from coal, chalk and ruddle.
On his father’s death in 1648, Robert was left a sum of one hundred pounds that enabled him to buy an apprenticeship; with his poor health throughout his life but evident mechanical facility his father had it in mind that he might become a watchmaker or limner, though Hooke was also interested in painting. Hooke was an apt student, so although he went to London to take up an apprenticeship, and studied briefly with Samuel Cowper and Peter Lely, he was soon able to enter Westminster School in London, under Dr. Busby, where he lodged his hundred pounds. Hooke quickly mastered Latin and Greek, made some study of Hebrew, and mastered Euclid’s Elements. Here, too, he embarked on his life-long study of mechanics.
Oxford, Boyle
Robert Boyle
littlenick
Luck of the Irish
jmwearin