John Wilkins

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For other people named John Wilkins, see John Wilkins (disambiguation).

Magdalen Hall, Oxford[2]
Arms: Argent on a pale engrailed cotised plain Sable three martlets Or.[3]

John Wilkins FRS (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death.

Wilkins is one of the few persons to have headed a college at both the

An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) in which, amongst other things, he proposed a universal language and an integrated system of measurement, similar to the metric system
.

Wilkins lived in a period of great political and religious controversy, yet managed to remain on working terms with men of all political stripes; he was key in setting the Church of England on the path toward comprehension for as many sects as possible, "and toleration for the rest". Gilbert Burnet called him "the wisest clergyman I ever knew. He was a lover of mankind, and had a delight in doing good."[5] His stepdaughter married John Tillotson, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1691.

Early life

He was probably born at

conforming Puritan. His mother then remarried to Francis Pope, and their son, Walter Pope was a half-brother.[6][7]

Wilkins was educated at a school in Oxford run by Edward Sylvester, and matriculated at

Magdalen Hall, Oxford where his tutor was John Tombes, and graduated with a BA degree in 1631, an MA degree in 1634.[6] He studied astronomy with John Bainbridge.[8]

Wilkins went to Fawsley in 1637, a sheep-farming place with little population, dominated by the

Charles Louis, nephew of King Charles I, who was then in England.[6]

In London, Oxford and Cambridge

An 18th Century engraving of John Wilkins, Chester

Wilkins was one of the group of savants, interested in experimental philosophy, who gathered round

Christopher Merrett, and John Wallis
.

Others of Scarburgh's circle were

Gresham College group of 1645, was described much later by Wallis, who mentions also Theodore Haak, anchoring it also to the Palatine exiles; there are clear connections to the Wilkins Oxford Philosophical Club, another and less remote precursor to the Royal Society.[11]

From 1648 Charles Louis was able to take up his position as

Elector of the Palatinate on the Rhine, as a consequence of the Peace of Westphalia. Wilkins travelled to continental Europe, and according to Anthony Wood visited Heidelberg.[12]

In 1648 Wilkins became

Matthew Wren.[13] Robert Hooke was gradually recruited into the Wilkins group: he arrived at Christ Church, Oxford in 1653, working his way to an education, became assistant to Willis, became known to Wilkins (possibly via Richard Busby) as a technician, and by 1658 was working with Boyle.[14]

In 1656, Wilkins married Robina French (née Cromwell), youngest sister of Oliver Cromwell, who had been widowed in 1655 when her husband Peter French, a canon of

Whitehall Palace. Shortly before his death, Oliver Cromwell arranged for Wilkins a new appointment as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge,[15][16] an appointment that was confirmed by Richard Cromwell who succeeded his father as Lord Protector. Wilkins was there long enough to befriend and become a patron of Isaac Barrow.[17]

After the Restoration

Wilkins' signature as Secretary, signing off the 1667 accounts of the Royal Society, from the minutes book

Upon the

Restoration in 1660, the new authorities deprived Wilkins of the position given him by Cromwell; he gained appointment as prebendary of York and rector of Cranford, Middlesex. In 1661, he was reduced to preacher at Gray's Inn, lodging with his friend Seth Ward. In 1662, he became vicar of St Lawrence Jewry, London. He suffered in the Great Fire of London, losing his vicarage, library and scientific instruments.[18]

Possessing strong scientific tastes, Wilkins was a founding member of the Royal Society and was soon elected fellow and one of the Society's two secretaries: he shared the work with Henry Oldenburg, whom he had met in Oxford in 1656.[6][19]

Bishop

Wilkins became vicar of

classis.[21]

As Wilkins was ordained, he spoke out against the use of penal laws, and immediately tried to gather support from other moderate bishops to see what concessions to the nonconformists could be made.[22]

A serious effort was made in 1668 to secure a scheme of comprehension, with

William Bates, Richard Baxter and Thomas Manton for the dissenters meeting Wilkins and Hezekiah Burton. Wilkins felt the Presbyterians could be brought within the Church of England, while the Independent separatists were left outside. It fell through by late summer, with Manton blaming John Owen for independent scheming for general toleration with Buckingham, and Baxter pointing the finger at the House of Lords.[23]

Death

Wilkins died in London, most likely from the medicines used to treat his

kidney stones and urinary retention.[24]

Works

His numerous written works include:

  • The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638)[25][26]
  • A Discourse Concerning a New Planet (1640)
  • Mercury, or the Secret and Swift Messenger (1641), the first English-language book on cryptography
  • Ecclesiastes (1646)
  • Mathematical Magick (1648)
  • A Discourse Concerning the Beauty of Providence (1649)
  • A discourse concerning the gift of prayer: shewing what it is, wherein it consists and how far it is attainable by industry (1651)
  • Vindiciae academiarum (1654), with Seth Ward
  • natural philosophers
    .
  • Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion, London, UK: Archive, 1675
Mathematical magick, 1691
Frontispiece of John Wilkins "An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language" (1668)

The early scientific works were in a popular vein, and have links to the publications of

Rosicrucians, Robert Fludd.[34][35]

Ecclesiastes (1646) is a plea for a plain style in preaching, avoiding rhetoric and scholasticism, for a more direct and emotional appeal.

Ciceronian style in preaching, and in the changing meaning of elocution to the modern sense of vocal production.[38][39]

A Discourse Concerning the Beauty of Providence (1649) took an unfashionable line, namely that divine providence was more inscrutable than current interpreters were saying. It added to the reputation of Wilkins, when the Stuarts returned to the throne, to have warned that the short term reading of events as managed by God was risky.[40]

In 1654, Wilkins joined with Seth Ward in writing Vindiciae academiarum, a reply to John Webster's Academiarum Examen, one of many attacks at the time on the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and their teaching methods. This attack had more clout than most: it was dedicated to John Lambert, a top military figure, and was launched during Barebone's Parliament, when radical change seemed on the cards. Wilkins (as NS) provided an open letter to Ward; and Ward (as HD, also taking the final letters of his name therefore) replied at greater length. Wilkins makes two main points: first, Webster is not addressing the actual state of the universities, which were not as wedded to old scholastic ways, Aristotle, and Galen, as he said; and secondly Webster's mixture of commended authors, without fuller understanding of the topics, really was foolish. In this approach Wilkins had to back away somewhat from his writings of the late 1630s and early 1640s. He made light of this in the way of pointing to Alexander Ross, a very conservative Aristotelian who had attacked his own astronomical works, as a more suitable target for Webster. This exchange was part of the process of the new experimental philosophers throwing off their associations with occultists and radicals.[41]

In 1668 he published his

better source needed
]

In his lexicographical work he collaborated with William Lloyd.[44] The Ballad of Gresham College (1663), a gently satirical ode to the Society, refers to this project:

A Doctor counted very able
Designes that all Mankynd converse shall,
Spite o' th' confusion made att Babell,
By Character call'd Universall.
How long this character will be learning,
That truly passeth my discerning.[45]

See also

References

  1. ^ Davies, Cliff S.L. (2004), "The Family and Connections of John Wilkins, 1614–72", Oxoniensia, vol. LXIX
  2. ^ a b c d e Sanders, Francis (1900). "Wilkins, John" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 61. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  3. ^ "The Armorial Bearings of the Bishops of Chester". Cheshire Heraldry Society. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
  4. Alister E. McGrath
    , A Scientific Theology: Nature (2001), p. 242.
  5. ^ Burnet, Gilbert (1833). Lives, Characters, and an Address to Posterity (2nd ed.). London, England: James Duncan. p. 304.
  6. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29421. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  7. ISBN 978-1-884964-90-9. Archived
    from the original on 13 February 2018.
  8. ^ Feingold, Mordechai (1997), "Mathematical Sciences and New Philosophies", in Tyacke, Nicholas (ed.), The History of the University of Oxford, vol. IV Seventeenth-century Oxford, p. 380
  9. ^ Barbara J. Shapiro (1969). John Wilkins, 1614–1672: An Intellectual Biography. University of California Press. p. 257. GGKEY:BA7AHU7B3TC.
  10. ^ "Knightley, Richard (1593–1639), of Fawsley, Northants. History of Parliament Online". Archived from the original on 10 September 2015. Retrieved 28 April 2015.
  11. ^ Tinniswood, Adrian (2001), His Invention So Fertile: A life of Christopher Wren, pp. 23–24.
  12. ^ Barbara J. Shapiro (1969). John Wilkins, 1614–1672: An Intellectual Biography. University of California Press. p. 23. GGKEY:BA7AHU7B3TC.
  13. ^ Purver, Margery (1967), The Royal Society: Concept and Creation, p. 205.
  14. ^ Jardine, Lisa (2003), The Curious Life of Robert Hooke, pp. 63–75.
  15. ^ The Master of Trinity, UK: Trinity College, Cambridge, archived from the original on 19 March 2008
  16. ^ "Wilkins, John (WLKS639J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  17. ^ Feingold, Mordechai (1990), Before Newton: The Life and Times of Isaac Barrow, pp. 52–3.
  18. ^ Project Gutenberg, archived from the original on 27 September 2008.
  19. ^ Garber, Daniel; Ayers, Michael, eds. (2003), 'The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-century Philosophy, vol. II, p. 1455.
  20. ^ Keeble, NH (2002), The Restoration: England in the 1660s, p. 123.
  21. ^ "Humfrey, John", Dictionary of National Biography
  22. ^ Marshall, John (1991), "Locke and Latitudinarianism", in Kroll, Richard W.F.; Ashcraft, Richard; Zagorin, Perez (eds.), Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England, 1640–1700, p. 257.
  23. ^ Lamont, William M. (1979), Richard Baxter and the Millennium, p. 220
  24. ISBN 1-59692-115-3
    .
  25. ^ "Cromwell's moonshot: how one Jacobean scientist tried to kick off the space race", This Britain, The Independent, UK, 10 October 2004, archived from the original on 9 May 2009.
  26. ^ "14; The Discovery of a World in the Moon", History, Positive atheism, archived from the original on 6 September 2001
  27. ^ Bouyre Claire, «  Vivre et Aller sur la Lune en 1640 ? Les sciences du vivant dans le discours sur la pluralité des Mondes, à partir de l’œuvre de John Wilkins: The Discovery Of A New World (1640) » Bulletin d’Histoire et d’épistémologie des Sciences de la vie, 2014, 21 (1), pp. 7–37.
  28. ^ In 1701 The Discovery of a World in the Moone was included in the Vatican list of condamned books Library of Condamned books
  29. ^ MERCVRY: The secret and swift Messenger (scan of original book), Light of truth, archived from the original on 4 September 2009.
  30. S2CID 161387367
  31. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Godwin, Francis" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 176.
  32. ^ Fauvel, UIUC, archived from the original on 13 August 2009, retrieved 16 February 2009
  33. ^ Proceedings (PDF), Newberry, p. 25, archived from the original (PDF) on 24 February 2009
  34. ^ Brann, Noel E. (1999), Trithemius and Magical Theology: A Chapter in the Controversy over Occult Studies in Early Modern Europe, p. 233
  35. ^ Yates, Frances (1986), The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 284
  36. ^ Jones, Richard Foster (1951), The Seventeenth Century: Studies in the History of English Thought and Literature from Bacon to Pope, p. 78
  37. ^ Goring, Paul (2005), Rhetoric of Sensibility in Eighteenth-century Culture, p. 37
  38. ^ Green, I.M. (2000), Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England, p. 109
  39. ^ Enos, Theresa, ed. (1996), Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication from Ancient Times to the Information Age, p. 764
  40. ISBN 978-0-521-86788-7
    , [Wilkins] urged his readers to 'remember [that] we are but short-sighted, and cannot discern the various references, and dependences, amongst the great affairs in the world, and may therefore be easily mistaken in our opinion of them.'... After the Restoration, Wilkins's words seemed particularly prescient.
  41. ^ Debus, Allen G. (1970), Science and Education in the Seventeenth Century: The Webster-Ward Debate
  42. ^ The Analytical Language of John Wilkins, Alamut, archived from the original on 2 February 2006
  43. ISBN 978-1-4488-7227-5. Archived
    from the original on 16 May 2016.
  44. ^ Natascia final report, NO: UIB, archived from the original on 14 October 2006
  45. ^ Stimson, Dorothy (1932), "Ballad of Gresham College", Isis, vol. 18, pp. 103–17

Bibliography

External links

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John Wilkins
Academic offices
Preceded by Warden of Wadham College, Oxford
1648–1659 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Master of Trinity College, Cambridge
1659–1660 		Succeeded by
Church of England titles
Preceded by
Vacant
 Dean of Ripon
1663–1672 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Bishop of Chester
1668–1672 		Succeeded by
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