Halley the Londoner

Edmond Halley was a Londoner born and bred, he married into a London family and lived most of his life in or near London: London made his life and work possible. Halley’s public life is generally well known and documented, yet there are important gaps in the record. One was his survey and fortification of harbours in Dalmatia in 1703, at the direct command of Queen Anne, and his consequent election to the Savilian chair of geometry in 1704. 1 More generally, it has been recognized that Halley could not have done many of the things he did without influential support from powerful patrons. 2 In this article I suggest that the source of his patronage is to be found in his London connections. Halley moved in very influential circles from his schooldays at St Paul’s. He was in the party that chose the site of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1675. 3 King Charles II himself promoted his expedition to St Helena and, on his return, Halley received the AM degree from Oxford at the command of Charles. It was Halley, rather than Pepys, the close associate of James II and President of the Royal Society, who presented Principia to the King. Halley seems at first to have come under suspicion from William III but had the support of Queen Mary for his later Atlantic and Channel cruises, on which, although a civilian, he was in command of Paramore and commissioned as a post-captain in the Royal Navy. His Adriatic surveys were at the direct command of Queen Anne. I believe that to understand how Halley could rely on such support we must look at his London background and connections, and in this article I consider his extended family, his links with the Tower and his associations with the London trading companies, in the early part of his life before he went to Oxford in 1704.