Life after Gravity

Isaac Newton's London Career

Patricia Fara

Presents Newton as a wealthy, ambitious Londoner with international connections, challenging the prevailing view of Newton as a solitary, reclusive genius
A unique narrative structure based on a Hogarth's painting 'The Indian Emperor', incorporating iconographic evidence to identify Newton as a participant in aristocratic metropolitan circles
Relates Newton and his science to Britain's imperial networks and the African slave trade, exposing Britain's greatest scientific hero as a participant in global trading based on slavery

Life after Gravity

Isaac Newton's London Career

Patricia Fara

Description

The story of Isaac Newton's decades in London - as ambitious cosmopolitan gentleman, President of London's Royal Society, Master of the Mint, and investor in the slave trade.

Isaac Newton is celebrated throughout the world as a great scientific genius who conceived the theory of gravity. But in his early fifties, he abandoned his life as a reclusive university scholar to spend three decades in London, a long period of metropolitan activity that is often overlooked. Enmeshed in Enlightenment politics and social affairs, Newton participated in the linked spheres of early science and imperialist capitalism. Instead of the quiet cloisters and dark libraries of Cambridge's all-male world, he now moved in fashionable London society, which was characterized by patronage relationships, sexual intrigues and ruthless ambition.

Knighted by Queen Anne, and a close ally of influential Whig politicians, Newton occupied a powerful position as President of London's Royal Society. He also became Master of the Mint, responsible for the nation's money at a time of financial crisis, and himself making and losing small fortunes on the stock market. A major investor in the East India Company, Newton benefited from the global trading networks that relied on selling African captives to wealthy plantation owners in the Americas, and was responsible for monitoring the import of African gold to be melted down for English guineas.

Patricia Fara reveals Newton's life as a cosmopolitan gentleman by focussing on a Hogarth painting of an elite Hanoverian drawing room. Gazing down from the mantelpiece, a bust of Newton looms over an aristocratic audience watching their children perform a play about European colonialism and the search for gold. Packed with Newtonian imagery, this conversation piece depicts the privileged, exploitative life in which this eminent Enlightenment figure engaged, an uncomfortable side of Newton's life with which we are much less familiar.

Life after Gravity

Isaac Newton's London Career

Patricia Fara

List of illustrations
Introduction
Prologue
Act I: The Theatre: Isaac Newton moves to the Metropolis
1. Living in Style
2. The Tower of London
3. Family Trees
4. The Rise and Rise of John Conduitt
Act II: The Audience: Isaac Newton In London society
5. Fortune Hunters
6. The Royal Society
7. Hanover-upon-Thames
Act III: The Play: Isaac Newton and English Imperialism
8. Making Money
9. Knowledge and Power
10. Going Global
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography

Life after Gravity

Isaac Newton's London Career

Patricia Fara

Author Information

Patricia Fara lectures in the history of science at Cambridge University, where she is a Fellow of Clare College. Her prize-winning book, Science: A Four Thousand Year History (OUP, 2009), has been translated into nine languages. In addition to many academic publications, her popular works include Newton: The Making of Genius (Columbia University Press, 2002), An Entertainment for Angels (Icon Books, 2002), Sex, Botany and Empire (Columbia University Press, 2003), Pandora's Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment (Pimlico, 2004), and most recently A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War (OUP, 2018). An experienced public lecturer, Patricia Fara appears regularly in TV documentaries and radio programmes such as In Our Time. She also contributes articles and reviews to many journals, including History Today, BBC History, New Scientist, Nature and the TLS.

Life after Gravity

Isaac Newton's London Career

Patricia Fara

Reviews and Awards

"Anyone interested in a detailed account of the later part of Newton's life, focusing on its social, political, and moral dimensions, will find this an especially illuminating book." -- J W Dauben

"Fara's story is full of colour... she is not just writing about Newton, she is painting a portrait of the age in which he lived, worked, schmoozed and manoeuvred... she also writes with an elegance and a wit you don't generally associate with history books." -- Marcus Berkmann, Daily Mail

"Science is always part of society, as Fara entertainingly shows." -- BBC History Magazine

"... fresh, fascinating study of his [Newton's] London career." -- Andrew Robinson, Nature

"... a highly unorthodox and groundbreaking book... revealing and beautifully written..." -- Vitali Vitaliev, E&T Magazine

"Fara is a pleasingly lively historical guide... the sheer energy of the book shines through, giving readers a messier and more thornily human Newton than the cartoon renditions to which he's so often reduced." -- Steve Donoghue, Christian Science Monitor

"... impressively broad and multifaceted, making for an interesting, penetrating slice of history, personal and generally." -- M A Orthofer, Complete Review

"The rich historical background provided... is to be welcomed... this is an excellent account of Newton in London." -- Brad Baxter, British Numismatic Journal

Life after Gravity

Isaac Newton's London Career

Patricia Fara

From Our Blog

Isaac Newton's London life: a quiz

Isaac Newton is known as the scientist who discovered gravity, but less well-known are the many years he spent in metropolitan London, and what precisely he got up to in that time...

Posted on February 22, 2021

Read the blog post