Martin Folkes

In 1750, Martin Folkes became the only individual who was President of both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries of London, and he contributed to efforts to unite both organizations. Although he failed, illness forcing him to resign both offices, this chapter outlines the book’s analysis of the ensuing disciplinary boundaries between the two organizations in the early Georgian era in the context of Folkes’s life and letters. While it is normally assumed that natural philosophy and antiquarianism are disciplines that were fast becoming disconnected in this period, this work will reconsider these assumptions. The Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries were nearly reunited for good reason. Both societies incorporated techniques and affinities from antiquarianism—natural history and landscape—and the ‘new science’—engineering principles, measurement, and empiricism. Using Folkes’s life and letters, this biography will examine the disciplinary boundaries between the humanities and sciences in early Georgian Britain and reassess the extent to which the separation of these ‘two cultures’ developed in this era. It will also consider to what extent Folkes continued the Newtonian programme in mathematics, optics, and astronomy on the Continent. In this manner, the work will refine its definition of Newtonianism and its scope in the early eighteenth century, elucidating and reclaiming the vibrant research programme that Folkes promoted in the period of English science least well understood between the age of Francis Bacon and the present.

Martin Folkes and the Royal Society Presidency

Chapter seven delineates Folkes role as Royal Society President from 1741 to 1752, analyzing to what extent Folkes’s large number of far-flung social contacts engendered scientific creativity in the Royal Society, challenging the long-standing, mistaken impression among scholars that the organization was in decline in the eighteenth century. The chapters also demonstrates to what extent Folkes participated in discoveries in studies of zoophytes and biological vitalism with Abraham Trembley. In this manner, we thus reclaim the vibrant research programme that Folkes promoted in the Royal Society.

‘Charting’ a Personal and Institutional Life

In 1750, Folkes became president of the Society of Antiquaries, in addition to that of the Royal Society and contributed to efforts to unite both organisations. Although he failed, illness forcing him to resign both offices, chapter nine analyses the ensuing disciplinary boundaries between the two organisations in the early Georgian era. While natural philosophy and antiquarianism were disciplines that we normally assume were fast becoming disconnected in this period, our work will reconsider these assumptions. The Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries were nearly reunited for good reason. Both societies incorporated techniques and affinities from antiquarianism—natural history and landscape—and the ‘new science’—engineering principles, measurement, and empiricism. We will conclude with Folkes’s final years, the circumstances of his memorial at Westminster Abbey, and an assessment of his life and letters, particularly with regard to his relationship with Voltaire.

Martin Folkes and the Royal Society Presidency

The Royal Society under Martin Folkes’s presidency not only promoted pioneering experiments in biological vitalism, but embraced new investigations in static electricity, primarily with the use of insulators. This chapter analyses Folkes’s patronage of the electrical work of artist and natural philosopher Benjamin Wilson, and to what extent Wilson was influenced by the Irish natural philosopher and physician Bryan Robinson. Lastly, the chapter delineates the Royal Society’s research in seismology and electricity, precipitated by the the London earthquakes of the 1750s.

Martin Folkes, Antiquary

Chapter six continues the intellectual connections between Folkes’s and his contemporaries’ work in natural philosophy, natural history and antiquarianism via two case studies involving Folkes’s work in numismatics and in the Egyptian Society. Just as Folkes promoted Newtonianism, his writing of his Table of Gold and Silver Coins reflected his allegiance to his mentor Newton, Master of the Royal Mint, as his editing did of Newton’s biblical chronologies. Royal Society Fellows were also deriving metrological standards and tables of specific gravities of metals, so these concerns dovetailed in Folkes’s work on the English coinage. Use of material culture to reconstruct the past was inherent to antiquarianism and to natural philosophy at the Royal Society. Fellows attended experimental demonstrations from which axiomatic principles were formulated via discursive practice; members could also access this material by the reading of reports of experiments. The Egyptian Society to which Folkes belonged (1741–3) had the same methodology, to discover principles of sociocultural and religious practices in Egypt, as well as to provide ‘object biographies’ of artefacts that belonged to members that they examined with speculations on their manufacture and use, for instance of ancient enamels and pigments, as well as the practice of mummification.

Folkes and His Social Networks in 1720s London

Folkes’s social networks are the subject of chapter four, which analyses his participation in the Grand Masonic Lodge, and the revived Order of the Bath, as part of what Antti Matikkala has termed ‘The Chivalric Enlightenment’ a movement ‘essentially rhetorical, learned, antiquarian and eclectic’. Although the term ‘Enlightenment’ itself is contested, with so-called ‘Enlightened historians’ often scorning antiquarian pursuits, others, such as Folkes, had enlightened interest in the past which he and the Royal Society promoted. This chapter will also analyse the ties between the Masons and the Royal Society, and to what extent Folkes’s religious beliefs and participation in these organizations shaped the teaching of Newton’s work at Cambridge, as well as his editing of Newton’s Chronology and Ancient Kingdoms Revised with Thomas Pellett. We also will delineate how and why his participation in these social networks did not guarantee him the Royal Society Presidency when Newton died in 1727.

Taking Newton on Tour

Although he failed in his first bid to be Royal Society President, Folkes continued to promote Newtonianism abroad. Folkes took a Grand Tour from 1732/3 to 1735, recording the Italian leg of his journey from Padua to Rome in his journal. Chapter five examines Folkes’s travel diary to analyse further his Freemasonry, his intellectual development as a Newtonian and his scientific peregrination in which he used metrology to understand not only the aesthetics but the engineering principles of antique buildings and artefacts, as well as their context and place in the Italian landscape. For Folkes, natural philosophy and antiquarianism went hand in hand. Using Folkes’s diary of his journey, and letters to/from natural philosophers such as Francesco Algarotti, Anders Celsius and Abbé Antonio Conti, this chapter analyses to what extent Folkes’s tour established his reputation as an international broker of Newtonianism as well as the overall primacy of English scientific instrumentation to Italian virtuosi.

Lucretia Bradshaw

Chapter three reconstructs the enigmatic life and career of Folkes’s wife, the actress Lucretia Bradshaw whose glittering Drury Lane career ended in tragedy; she was eventually confined to a Chelsea madhouse. Lucretia’s life is used as a case study to understand how her relationship with Folkes was an example of the profound shift in ideas about marriage in this period, as well as Georgian conceptions of insanity and medical treatment.

Nascent Newtonian, 1690–1716

This chapter assesses Folkes’s early life and letters as a nascent Newtonian. We demonstrate to what extent Folkes’s education with French Huguenot scholars Abraham de Moivre and Jacques Louis Cappel, as well as with Charles Morgan, Master of Clare College, Cambridge would serve as a basis for his continued ties to Huguenot instrument makers and Cambridge natural philosophers and mathematicians throughout his professional career.