Science & Nature Tour Notes

Woolsthorpe Manor

It's a sound speculation that in 1000 years or 10,000 years, if our species is still here, the name Isaac Newton will still represent an icon of science and especially of physics. But there was a person behind the name and the science associated with that name, a living human being living a not so happy life.

This recommended tour is an excursion into the personal life of one of the greats whose shoulders support all scientists everywhere.

Before we get to a discussion of Newton's modest home, Woolsthorpe Manor, here are two excerpts about Isaac Newton the man from the ScienceWeek archives:

In October 1669, on the retirement of Barrow, [Newton] was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a post he held for 26 years. One of the Professor's duties was to "lecture and expound" some mathematical discipline of his choice at least once each week at a prearranged time during the seven months of the Cambridge academic year... He carried out his minimal lecturing duties, but, as his secretary Humphrey Newton (no relation) records many years later: "So few went to hear him, and fewer that understood him, that ofttimes he did in a manner, for want of hearers, read to the walls... he usually stayed about half an hour; when he had no auditors, he commonly returned in a 4th part of that time or less." Humphrey also provides some engaging personal details: "His carriage then was very meek, sedate, and humble... I cannot say I ever saw him laugh but once... I never knew him to take any recreation or pastime either in riding out to take the air, walking, bowling, or any other exercise whatever, thinking all hours lost that was were not spent in his studies... He very rarely went to dine in the Hall, except on some public days, and as if he has not been minded, would go very carelessly, with shoes down at the heels, stockings untied, surplice on, and his head scarcely combed." This, however, is not the whole story. Newton had a circle of personal friends and did a certain amount of academic entertaining. Humphrey tells us that, "when invited to a treat, he used to return it very handsomely, freely and with much satisfaction to himself." His niece, Catherine Conduitt, relates how one of his cronies -- a lecturer in chemistry -- fell from favor. "He told a loose story about a nun, and then Sir Isaac left off all confidence with him."

Adapted from: Stuart Hollingdale: Makers of Mathematics. Viking Press 1989, p.171.

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ON THE CHILDHOOD OF ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

The Newtons were moderately successful farmers. They lived in the gentle river valley of Lincolnshire, England. Isaac, Newton's father, owned a farm in the small village of Woolsthorpe, which was a half dozen miles south of the town of Grantham. None of the Newtons before Isaac Newton was literate. However, on his mother's side, Isaac's uncle, William Ayscough, had graduated with an M.A. from Cambridge University. In October 1642, before the birth of his son, Newton's father died, leaving Newton's mother, Hannah Ayscough Newton, a pregnant widow. That Christmas Day when Isaac Newton was born he was so small and sickly it was said he would fit into a quart mug. He was not expected to live out the day. Yet he did, developing a sufficiently strong constitution to survive into his 80s. How young Isaac would have grown into manhood with a loving father and mother we will never know. When Isaac was only three years old his mother married a sixty-three-year-old reverend by the name of Barnabas Smith, whose church was a mere mile and a half south of Woolsthorpe in the village of North Witham. Hannah left her son in Woolsthorpe with his maternal grandmother while she moved into Barnabas Smith's church in North Witham. Fatherless at birth, and abandoned by his mother at three, Isaac did not grow up with the love and nurturing many children take for granted. That he was not close to his Grandmother Ayscough is attested by the fact that he never mentions her with affection in any of his voluminous writings. It may seem strange that a young mother would leave a three-year-old son to live fewer than two miles away. Perhaps this same thought occurred to young Newton. Under the care of his grandmother, he lived with the knowledge that his mother was only a short walk south on the road. Abandoned and very bright, Isaac grew up in isolation.

Adapted from: Calvin C. Clawson: Mathematical Sorcery: Revealing the Secrets of Numbers. Perseus Publishing 1999, p.233

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And now Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton's birthplace and home whenever he was not at Cambridge University:

The house was a yeoman's farmstead, principally rearing sheep (hence the wool reference in the name -- "thorpe" comes from a Danish/Viking word meaning farmstead). Newton formulated some of his major works here during the Plague years (1665–67), when he lived away from Cambridge. An early edition of his Principia is on display, and the orchard is said to include a descendant of the famous apple tree. Visitors to the house can see the restored Wet Kitchen, and outside there are orchards, paddocks and farm buildings, with rare breed Lincoln Longwool sheep and hens

Woolsthorpe has grown from a hamlet of several houses in the 17th century to a small village of several hundred houses today. Much of the original land once owned by Woolsthorpe Manor was sold to a nearby family, and some of the immediate open land has since been developed. Newton's house still remains on the edge of the village and mostly surrounded by fields.

The house is now managed by the UK National Trust and open to the public from spring to autumn, it's being presented as a typical 17th century yeoman's farmhouse (or as near to that as possible, given the requirements of modern living, health and safety requirements, and structural changes that have been made to the house since Newton's time).

Woolsthorpe Manor is approximately 100 miles north of London and should be reached by car (or by taxi from Grantham railway station, 10 miles to the north). It can easily be found by driving along the A1 highway and exiting for Colsterworth, about half way between Grantham and Stamford. But don't get lost: there are two villages in Lincolnshire named Woolsthorpe: Woolsthorpe-by-Belvoir (pronounced beever) near Nottingham and Woolsthorpe by Colsterworth, where Woolsthorpe Manor can be found.

Given Newton's difficult childhood history and his later contributions to science and all mankind, you may feel a quiver or two as you walk through this modest house and the grounds around it. If you want a place that can be called the birthplace of modern science, this is it. Bon voyage!