The intellectual origins of the Royal Society-London or Oxford?

Abstract

The Royal Society was founded in 1660 at Gresham College. Even in the seventeenth century divergent views arose among its founders as to its intellectual origins and the events which led up to its foundation. So it is not surprising that echoes of these divergences were heard when the Society was celebrating its Tercentenary in 1960. The main points in debate were the extent of Francis Bacon’s influence on its foundation, and the respective contributions of the related groups in London and Oxford. Miss Syfret had already successfully challenged Thomas Birch’s view that the ‘Invisible College’ mentioned by Boyle and centring round Hartlib was in any direct way linked with the foundation of the Royal Society. Professor Douglas McKie in Origins and Founders brought both the London and Oxford groups into his account, and his and Miss Syfret’s interpretations seemed to fit one another (1). However, a booklet from Oxford written by Miss (now Dr) Margery Purver and Dr E. J. Bowen claimed that John Wilkins and the Oxford group were the only begetters of the Royal Society, and rejected John Wallis’s claims for the earlier London group around Gresham College. Dr Purver has elaborated the arguments in favour of this view in a recently published book (2). The Editor of Notes and Records has now asked me to put on record my own views, since I had already discussed this aspect of the intellectual history of the period in my Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution (1965).