scholarly journals John Turton, F. R. S., 1735-1806

1956 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-97
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Royal Family ◽  
Grand Tour ◽  
Oliver Goldsmith ◽  
David Garrick ◽  
George Iii

The name of Dr John Turton may not be familiar today, but in the latter part of the eighteenth century it was both well-known and respected. Dr Johnson, with whom he was related and connected, wrote verses to his mother. During the Grand Tour which he made on a Radchffe Travelling Fellowship, he met most of the physicians in Europe and studied at Geneva, Vienna and Paris. He played a small but important part, hitherto quite unknown, in the life of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Among his patients were Edward Gibbon, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, Mrs Delany, George III, Queen Charlotte, and the Prince of Wales, for he became Physician in Ordinary to them, and his correspondence shows how greatly his advice was appreciated by several members of the Royal Family. His correspondence with Charles Bonnet and Sir Joseph Banks throws light on the famous dissensions in the Royal Society in the 1780’s. For all these reasons it has seemed worth while to rescue Turton from oblivion, a task which has been made both possible and pleasurable with the help of Mr R. H. Turton, M.P., Dr John Keevil, D.S.O., and Dr Bernard Gagnebin, Keeper of Manuscripts in the Library of Geneva. Ancestry and early years Dr John Turton (I) * was born in 1735, the son of Dr John Turton, a distinguished physician of Birmingham who in the previous year had married Dorothy Hickman, daughter of Gregory Hickman of Stourbridge. The Hickmans were connected with Dr Johnson, for Gregory Hickman’s mother Jane afterwards married Joseph Ford, Dr Johnson’s uncle. It was to Dorothy Hickman that Dr Johnson addressed his verses, To Miss Hickman playing on the Spinet , before he left Staffordshire for London. Mrs Turton died in 1744, and she appears to have been possessed of some fortune because John Turton inherited from her some property in Yorkshire.

Introduction: Fatal Ambition

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Weddle
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Family ◽  
Family Home ◽  
George Iii ◽  
Young Wife

THE QUEEN’S HOUSE WAS modest as royal palaces went in eighteenth-century England. In 1761, King George III purchased the former country home of the Duke of Buckingham for his young wife, Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. This unpretentious retreat for the royal family—later expanded substantially—would one day be known as Buckingham Palace. A family home, only a few steps from St. James Palace, the official royal residence, the Queen’s House provided the king and queen with some respite from their official duties....

A problem picture

1949 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-42 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
The Public ◽  
George Iii

This engraving, which is reproduced by the kindness of Mr L. F. Gilbert, B.Sc., F.R.I.C., presents a problem which may or may not be worth solving. It was apparently issued to the public in the first half of the eighteenth century, but it is difficult to say why it was dedicated to the Royal Society. During this period there was an Arthur Stone living who married a daughter of Francis Fox (1675- 1738). The latter was known as 'Father Fox' when he was Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London. Then there was George Stone (1708- 1764) who was known as 'Cardinal Lapidario' and his brother Andrew Stone (1703-1773) who conducted the negotiations which led to Henry Fox taking office under George III. Many other suggestions come to mind but it would be interesting to learn if any reader knows the engraving and can assist in solving the problem presented.

The Prince's Mentor: A New Perspective on the Friendship between George III and Lord Bute during the 1750s

1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Bullion
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
George Iii ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

The effects of the intense personal and political relationship between the young George III and his “dearest friend,” the earl of Bute, are well known to scholars of eighteenth-century Britain. The prince's affection and respect raised Bute, an obscure though well-connected Scottish nobleman, to the highest offices of state and to the absolute pinnacle of power. The earl's instruction and advice governed George's reactions to men and measures from 1755 until 1763. Even after Bute's influence waned following his resignation as First Lord of the Treasury, the lingering suspicions at Whitehall and Westminster that the king still listened to him in preference to others complicated relations between George III, his ministers, and Parliament.This article examines the origins of the friendship between the king and the earl, and the features of it that strengthened and preserved their attachment during the 1750s. These are questions that have not engaged the attention of many students of the period. The long shadow the relationship cast over politics during the 1760s has intrigued far more historians than its beginnings. They have been content to leave efforts to understand that subject to Sir Lewis Namier, who was inclined toward making psychological judgments of eighteenth-century politicians, and John Brooke, who was compelled to do so by the demands of writing a biography of George III. Both of these men asserted that the personal and affectionate aspects of the connection between the prince and Bute far outweighed the political and ideological during its early years. Their arguments have evidently convinced historians of politics to pass over what made Bute “my dearest friend” and press on to matters they assumed to be more relevant to their interests. The concern of this essay is to demonstrate that this assumption is incorrect. It will show that political and ideological considerations were in fact utterly crucial to this friendship at its inception and throughout its development during the 1750s, with consequences which profoundly affected the political history of the first decade of George III's reign. A mistaken reliance on works by Namier and Brooke has prevented scholars from perceiving these realities. Thus it is necessary to begin by pointing out the serious flaws in their interpretations.

Anniversary Address

1982 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Christopher N. L. Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Know How ◽  
Meeting Room ◽  
Rich Sense ◽  
The Rich ◽  
George Iii ◽  
Incoming President

As a President wanders in the rooms of the Society of Antiquaries, ever and anon he is confronted by the vision of his predecessors—sometimes singly, sometimes in formation; and for myself I cannot escape the feeling of bewilderment as to how I come to be in such company; and with it goes that exquisite sensation of inadequacy mingling with vainglory on which several of my predecessors have commented at their first entering in—and above all the rich sense of gratitude and appreciation for an honour scarcely earned but deeply felt. In particular, an incoming President cannot escape the amiable eye of his predecessor Jeremiah Milles—familiar to all of us from his portrait in the Meeting Room and his bust in the Library; and in the year now past he has been in a quite special way in our thoughts. It was just over two hundred years ago under his Presidency that the Society acquired one of the most valuable of its privileges or assets, if so we may term it: its rooms in Somerset House. This was the result of a pincer movement by ourselves and the Royal Society. Dr. Milles was a Fellow of both, as were many of the leading Antiquaries of the eighteenth century. He was an able, learned antiquarian and a Doctor of Divinity, who rose to be Dean of Exeter and to contribute to the study of the antiquities of Devon. He was a bon vivant who founded the first of our dining clubs. If he had been less of an antiquarian and more of a politician, no doubt he would have become a bishop; and very likely he would have been quite forgotten. But he was diplomat enough to know how this Society should secure free rooms in the new Somerset House. On 29th February 1776, after months or years of anxious intrigue, Lord North, the Prime Minister, was elected to our Fellowship, and agreed to carry to His Majesty King George III a petition for the rooms; on 19th March Lord North came to announce His Majesty's consent. In 1781 we entered possession; and a little under a hundred years later graciously consented to withdraw from Somerset House on condition that we were provided with adequate new accommodation on the site where we still meet.

John Harrison: clockmaker and Copley Medalist. A public memorial at last

2007 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.C Taylor ◽  
A.W Wolfendale
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
George Iii

The story of John Harrison, the clockmaker who effectively solved the ‘longitude problem’ in the eighteenth century, is a fascinating one. Here was a brilliant inventor who single-handedly took on the might of the astronomical fraternity and turned down Fellowship of the Royal Society, yet accepted its highest accolade—the Copley Medal—and had to enlist the help of King George III in pursuit of the final instalment of the Longitude Prize. This paper deals with the inventiveness of Harrison and the role of the Royal Society in the story and the very recent successful efforts to have his name remembered in perpetuity in Britain by a memorial in Westminster Abbey.

“For I Asked Him Men's Questions”: Late Eighteenth-Century British Women Tourists’ Contributions to Scientific Inquiry

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 158-177
Author(s):  
Emma Gleadhill
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Grand Tour ◽  
Scientific Education ◽  
Dorothy Richardson ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth

“We endeavoured with some tools our servants had, to carry some pieces of it with us,” Caroline Powys wrote of her visit to Stonehenge in 1759. “Tho’ our party were chiefly female,” she remarked, “we had no more curiosity than the learn'd gentlemen of the Royal Society.” Carolyn was not alone in challenging the gendered demarcation of scientific observation. From the second half of the century, British women travelers carefully packed minerals in cases, filled bags with botanical specimens, and roamed the shores in search of shells and seaweed. This article proposes that British women of the late eighteenth century used the empirical approach promoted by their polite scientific education to turn their leisured travels into knowledge-finding pursuits. The specimens and observations that they brought home played an overlooked role in allowing them to shape themselves as authoritative observers within the larger scientific knowledge-building enterprise that drew from the diffusion of Enlightenment classificatory systems, overseas exploration, and trade. This article brings to light four understudied eighteenth-century female empiricists: the mistress of Hardwick House, Whitchurch, Oxfordshire, Caroline Lybbe Powys (1738–1817); the first woman to publish a Grand Tour account, Lady Anna Miller (1741–81) of Batheaston, Somerset; the unmarried daughter of the rector of Thornton in Craven, Yorkshire, Dorothy Richardson (1748–1819); and the Whig political salon hostess, Lady Elizabeth Holland (1732–95). Each woman is of interest in her own right, but together, as I will argue, their scientific contributions add significantly to the ongoing investigation of the role that women played in developing Enlightenment science.

Towards a history of the Royal Society in the eighteenth century

1996 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-46 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Intensive Study ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Stated Belief ◽  
History Of ◽  
Royal Society Of London

A long-standing impression persists among scholars - with a few exceptions - that the Royal Society of London was in decline during the eighteenth century. This misperception has stemmed from four major sources: from the often-stated belief that the Society failed to follow the illustrious example that its greatest Fellow, Sir Isaac Newton, had set in the Principia ; from the negative opinions, repeatedly quoted, of several literary lions of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; from the continued popularity of Babbage’s Reflections on the Decline of Science in England , published in 1830, which has cast a pall over the reputation of the Society in the eighteenth century ever since; and from the intensive study devoted to the Society’s early years, which has overshadowed later periods.

Hooke recommemorated

1996 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-140
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Personal Interaction ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
History Of

Richard Nichols, The Diaries of Robert Hooke, The Leonardo of London, 1635-1703 . Lewes, Sussex: The Book Guild, 1994, Pp. 185, £15.00. ISBN 0- 86332-930-6. Richard Nichols is a science master turned historian of science who celebrates in this book Robert Hooke’s contributions to the arts and sciences. The appreciation brings together comments from Hooke’s Diaries , and other works, on each of his main enterprises, and on his personal interaction with each of his principal friends and foes. Further references to Hooke and his activities are drawn from Birch’s History of the Royal Society, Aubrey’s Brief Lives , and the Diaries of Evelyn and of Pepys. The first section of the book, ‘Hooke the Man’, covers his early years of education at home in Freshwater, at Westminster school and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he soon joined the group of experimental philosophers who set him up as Curator of the Royal Society and Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, Bishopsgate. Hooke’s domestic life at Gresham College is described - his intimate relationships with a series of housekeepers, including his niece, Grace Hooke, and his social life at the College and in the London coffee houses.

Kelly vs. Goldsmith: the Bailiffs in The School for Wives

1978 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-186
Author(s):  
Oliver W. Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
Oliver Goldsmith

Students of the eighteenth-century English theater are familiar with the bitter rivalry between Oliver Goldsmith and Hugh Kelly. The two had been friends until January 1768, when Kelly's False Delicacy and Goldsmith's The Good Natur'd Man opened within a week of each other. The Good Natur'd Man was moderately successful, but whatever satisfaction Goldsmith might otherwise have taken in this fact was marred by the overwhelming popularity of Kelly's comedy. To add to Goldsmith's discomfiture was the chagrin of having had one scene in his play hissed off the stage because of its low humor. In large measure, the reception given Goldsmith's first comedy influenced his intentions in his second: She Stoops to Conquer is an example of “laughing” comedy, deliberately set against the sentimental variety written by Kelly.

Recording the Aloes at Chelsea - a singular solution to a difficult problem

1996 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-57
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Singular Solution ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
General Series ◽  
History Of

In the Royal Society archives there is a collection of drawings of Aloes and other plants, made by two of the great botanical artists of the eighteenth century - Georg Dionysius Ehret and Jacob van Huysum. Although the Manuscripts General Series Catalogue records this manuscript only as a ‘Volume of 35 botanical paintings by Georg Dionysius Ehret’ of unknown provenance, the manuscript catalogue of the Arundel and other manuscripts, said to be the work of Jonas Dryander (1748-1810), provides the first clue linking these drawings to the two artists, and to the important collection of Aloes growing at that time in the Society of Apothecaries Physic Garden at Chelsea'. The history of the commissioning of the drawings is told briefly in the Journal Books of the Royal Society, and in the Minutes of Council, but the significance of these lovely and important drawings has been almost completely overlooked.

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