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Robert Hooke: Royal Society
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Robert Hooke was a significant influence in the advancement of science as well as Newton. An established physicist and astronomer, Hooke was with the Royal Society from its inception, and served it tirelessly and loyally for over forty years; it was he who had worded the society's credo "To improve the knowledge of natural things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanic practices, Engines and Inventions by Experiments (not meddling with divinity, Metaphysics, Morals, Politics, Grammar, Rhetoric or Logic)." But the rancor between Newton and Hooke did much to tarnish Hooke's reputation.
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Robert Hooke was an important architect. He was the official London Surveyor after the Great Fire of 1666 . As well as the Bethlem Royal Hospital, other buildings designed by Hooke include: The Royal College of Physicians (1679); Ragley Hall in Warwickshire; and the church at Willen , Buckinghamshire .
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In spite of a flurry of research activity in recent years, Robert Hooke remains a relatively unknown figure in the English scientific revolution. Compared with Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren, Isaac Newton, or even Christiaan Huygens, Hooke's historical legacy seems very slight. Yet Hooke worked closely with Boyle and Wren, was the curator of experiments for the Royal Society for over thirty years, and arguably developed new and important theories and instruments in several natural philosophical fields, including optics, horology, and microscopy. What can account for this invisibility? Hooke came from a relatively humble background; he worked as a technician for Boyle and the Royal Society; his political and religious alliances seldom worked in his favor; and there is no major discovery that we can point to unambiguously as his alone. As well, he was inclined to take umbrage at slights and engaged in a number of priority disputes with important people, especially Newton and Huygens.
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Illustration from Robert Hooke's 'Micrographia'. Hooke (1635-1703) studied at Oxford University, and whilst he was there he met Robert Boyle, and assisted him in the construction of an air pump. In 1660 he moved to London and became one of the founder members of the Royal Society, at which he held the post of 'Curator of Experiments'. 'Micrographia', the first important work on microscopy, was published in 1664 and contains illustrations of some of the specimens Hooke viewed under the compound microscope that he designed, as well as the microscope itself. Specimens were illuminated by focussing the light reflected off an oil-filled glass globe onto the base of the instrument.
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Robert Hooke is less well known as an important architect. He was appointed by the City of London as Surveyor following the Great Fire of 1666. This tested not only his architectural skills, but his administrative ones as well. Hooke designed many London buildings, but Victorian redevelopment and 20th century war have taken their toll. The Royal College of Physicians building (1679) is no more, and of the Bethlehem Hospital, or 'Bedlam', only the statues Raving Mania and Melancholy Mania survive in the Victoria and Albert Museum. He worked with Sir Christopher Wren (... an Old Westminster) on the design of The Royal Observatory at Greenwich, and The Monument (to The Great Fire) in Fish Hill Street.
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English scientist Robert Hooke (1635-1703) is known to history more for losing quarrels with better-known scientists than for his achievements. He dared challenge Newton for credit as discoverer of the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction and lost. In his dispute with Dutch scientist Christaan Huygens over who invented the isochronous pendulum clock, Hooke fared slightly better, since it was discovered that unfriendly members of the fledging Royal Society were slipping word of his discoveries to Huygens. Cambridge Renaissance scholar Jardine follows up her 2002 biography of Christopher Wren with this satisfying rehabilitation of Hooke, Wren's colleague in rebuilding London after the devastating fire of 1666. Jardine argues that Hooke played an equal role in many of the projects attributed to Wren, most notably the dome of Saint Paul's and the Monument to the Fire of London. Hooke never made the leap into greatness by adequately working out and proving his "hunches," in large part because of other scientists' demands on his time.
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