Laurence Rooke (1622-1662)

Abstract

TAURENCE ROOKE was born at Deptford on 13 March 1622 and although he did not live long enough to see the first Charter of the Royal Society as a fait acompli , he was, nevertheless, one of the founders of the Society and a strong supporter of the ‘new philosophy’. Rooke came of a good family of Monkshorton in Kent, Mary, his mother, being a niece of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester. Nothing is known of his early education but we do know that, in due course, he entered Eton and on 19 June 1639, at the age of seventeen, was admitted to King’s College, Cambridge. On 29 February 1643 Rooke obtained his B.A. and was elected a Fellow of the College; he gained his M.A. four years later and then retired to his estate in Kent. This ‘retirement’, which lasted three years, was due in all probability to his poor health; indeed, Rooke had never been very strong and had been granted his B.A. by proxy because of absence due to illness. However by 1650 his health seems to have improved for he became a fellow-commoner at Wadham College, Oxford. This move to Oxford was undertaken so that he could work under the Warden, Dr Wilkins, and the Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Seth Ward. Intellectually the atmosphere at Wadham was stimulating for Dr Wilkins was a great advocate of the new philosophical ideas and his lodgings were a centre where others of like mind were accustomed to meet.