scholarly journals Graphical details: the secret life of Christopher Wren's drawing of the weather clock

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ion Mihailescu
Keyword(s):  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Royal Institute ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Material World ◽  
Christopher Wren

Historians have unanimously credited Christopher Wren with having constructed a weather clock (a self-registering instrument) in the early 1660s. This conclusion was based on the account of the French diplomat Balthasar de Monconys, which included a sketch uncannily similar to an undated drawing by Wren of the weather clock. By critically re-examining the available sources, I argue that one can infer that Wren never actually constructed a weather clock. What Monconys saw and sketched was, in fact, a drawing produced by Wren for a meeting of the Royal Society that took place on 8 January 1662. I further show that there is strong evidence to assume that Wren's drawing for the Royal Society is the undated drawing preserved at the Royal Institute of British Architects. The new context in which I place Wren's drawing provides an incentive to look at it with fresh eyes. Though the drawing does not represent a device actually constructed by Wren, it still bears (unexpected) connections to the material world that surrounded him. The analysis of the drawing developed in this article will be relevant for historians interested in the role that images can play as historical evidence.

Editorial. An Italian correspondence, an Italian earthquake and the homes of The Royal Society

2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Terry Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
College Professors ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City ◽  
The Mansion ◽  
Italian Earthquake

Introduction to the January 2005 issue of Notes and Records with a reproduction of an engraving by Nehemiah Grew, date unknown. The engraving shows Gresham College, Bishopsgate, London, the mansion of Sir Thomas Gresham and the original home of The Royal Society from 1660–1710, except for a short period just after the Great Fire of London when the Society was at Arundel House. The Society was founded at Gresham College following a lecture by Christopher Wren, at that time Gresham Professor of Astronomy. The College was named after Sir Thomas Gresham, son of Sir Richard Gresham, Lord Mayor of London (1537–38), who conceived the idea, brought to fruition by his son, of the Royal Exchange modelled on the Antwerp Bourse. Gresham College professors continue to give free public lectures in the City of London.

The social responsibility of the scientist

1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
R. A. Morton
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Food Additives ◽  
Biological Research ◽  
National Committee ◽  
Royal Institute ◽  
Natural Environment Research Council ◽  
The Social ◽  
The University

Professor Morton was Johnston Professor of Biochemistry in the University of Liverpool, 1994–66. He served on the Council of the Royal Society, 1959–61, and on the Council of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, 1955–61. He was the first Chairman of the British National Committee for Chemical Education and of the Food Additives and Contaminants Committee. He has also served on many committees dealing with vitamins, bread and flour, nutrition and biological research generally. In recent years he has been active on committees of the Natural Environment Research Council.This lecture was given to a varied audience of staff and students at the University College of Aberystwyth on 25th February 1970. The Executive Editor is pleased to be able to publish this interesting and thought-provoking discourse on a problem of ever-growing importance.

The Presidential portraits

1946 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-42
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
William Hogarth ◽  
Humphry Davy ◽  
High Level ◽  
Lord Kelvin ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
Samuel Pepys

Among the treasured possessions of the Royal Society the portraits of the Presidents take an exalted place. From the time of the first President, Lord Brouncker, whose likeness was limned by Sir Peter Lely, the painted records of the great rulers of the Society have maintained a high level. It will suffice to mention such pictures as Sir Godfrey Kneller’s portrait of Sir Christopher Wren; Charles Jervas’s portrait of Newton; Thomas Phillips’s portrait of Sir Joseph Banks; Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of Sir Humphry Davy; and, in more recent times, Orchardson’s Lord Kelvin; Eve’s Sir Charles Sherrington and Meredith Frampton’s Sir Gowland Hopkins. Samuel Pepys and Martin Folkes can scarcely be numbered among the Presidents who have shed a scientific lustre on the Society, but their portraits by Sir Godfrey Kneller and William Hogarth respectively are magnificent examples of the portraitist’s art.

Digby, Kenelm (1603–65)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christia Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Vegetative Growth ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
John Locke ◽  
The Political ◽  
Material World ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Exhaustive Study ◽  
Mechanical Physics

Seventeenth-century English Catholic, original member of the Royal Society, and one of the first philosophers to produce a fully developed system of mechanical philosophy, Sir Kenelm Digby cut a dashing figure as a poet, privateer and philosopher. As a Catholic and royalist, he spent much of his life in semi-exile on the continent where he conversed with many of the political and intellectual leaders of his time; as a philosopher, he was favourably compared to René Descartes and John Locke. He attempted to wed the philosophy of Aristotle to the new mechanical physics, which maintained that every event in the material world is reducible to matter in motion. His interests and writings cover a wide range, from religion and magic to vegetative growth and literary commentary. The explicit goal of his most significant book, Two Treatises (1644), was to prove the immortality of the human soul. To this end, the first treatise constitutes an exhaustive study of bodies and their features. By showing that all corporeal qualities are to be explained in strictly material terms, he prepares the way for a thorough discussion of the soul. Digby argues that the soul must be immaterial (and hence immortal) because otherwise its features cannot be explained. He went on to apply the mechanical principles which he developed in this work to a variety of topics, including some traditionally associated with the occult. His works on alchemical, medical and religious topics were also widely read.

Sir Christopher Wren

1932 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 368
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren's fame as an architect is so great that we are apt to forget that he was Savilian Professor of astronomy at Oxford for a period of twelve years, and that he engaged in several pieces of research in mathematics, studying the properties of the cycloid and of the hyperboloid of revolution. He was also one of the founders of the Royal Society and served as its president for several years.

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