Person    | Male  Born 4/1/1643  Died 31/3/1727

Sir Isaac Newton

Categories: Science, Seriously Famous

Born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, on Christmas day, according to the calendar in use at the time. Died in Kensington (where he had gone in search of country air). The exact dates of birth and death vary from source to source. Buried Westminster Abbey.

He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1660. He propounded the laws of motion, universal gravitation, optics and the basis of differential calculus. He was Master of the Mint from 1699 - 1727, President of the Royal Society from 1703 - 26 and was knighted in 1705. Used to feature on the £1 note.

It is sometimes said that he lived in Leicester Square, but he actually lived nearby at 35 St. Martin's Street.

It is also said that Newton was practically an agelast, as Maths pages tells us: Isaac Newton's assistant at Cambridge claimed that during five years he saw Newton laugh only once. Newton had loaned a copy of Euclid {geometry} to an acquaintance, and the gentleman asked what use it was to study Euclid, "upon which Sir Isaac was very merry".

It's said that Newton loved animals and invented the cat-flap. Despite this, Newton may not have been a very nice man - he enjoyed witnessing the executions of the counterfeiters he pursued as part of his job at the Mint, and he had a major falling out with Robert Hooke, not speaking to him for the rest of his life. He fought a vicious feud with Leibniz over who invented the calculus. Newton's allegation that Leibniz had stolen his ideas was aggressive and destructive. It is now accepted that Newton wrote down the calculus first and Leibniz was the first to publish, while most schoolboys wish it had never been invented at all.

Buried in Westminster Abbey.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Sir Isaac Newton

Commemorated ati

British Library - Newton

Bronze, 12 foot high (and he's sitting down).  Via Facebook Henri Hudson has ...

Read More

City of London School 4 - Newton

{On the statue's plinth:} Newton

Read More

Isaac Newton bust

Isaac Newton, 25 December 1642 - 20 March 1727, scientist, mathematician, phi...

Read More

Show all 10

This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
Sir Isaac Newton

Creations i

St Stephen's School - Boys entrance

The two S's probably indicate 'St Stephen's'.

Read More

Other Subjects

William Curtis

William Curtis

Botanist and entomologist. Born Alton, Hampshire. Worked at the Chelsea Physic Garden. Set up a garden at Bermondsey and a larger one, the London Botanic Garden at Lambeth Marsh. His publication 'F...

Person, Science

2 memorials
Patrick Blackett

Patrick Blackett

Physicist. Born Kensington, Served in the navy in WW1. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948. Government and military advisor in WW2. Created a life peer in 1969 as Baron Blackett of Chelsea....

Person, Science

1 memorial
James Bradley

James Bradley

Astronomer. Born Sherborne, Gloucestershire. Elected as the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford 1721-62, his death. In 1742 he was appointed Astronomer Royal. He is best known for two fundame...

Person, Science

1 memorial
LEO - Lyons Electronic Office

LEO - Lyons Electronic Office

The world's first business computer was built and operated by J. Lyons & Co. The LEO website provides: In October 1947, the directors of J. Lyons & Company, a British catering company famo...

Concept, Commerce, Science

1 memorial
James D. Watson

James D. Watson

Molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist. Born Chicago as James Dewey Watson. 1962 awarded a Nobel Prize with Crick and Wilkins, for their work on the theory of a double-helix structure for DNA.

Person, Science, USA

1 memorial

Previously viewed

Thomas Wall - SW1

Thomas Wall - SW1

SW1, Jermyn Street, 113, Rowley's Restaurant

The plaque is over the entrance to the restaurant.

1 subject commemorated