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

Lord Kelvin

Lord Kelvin

Mathematical physicist and engineer. Born Belfast. His family moved to Glasgow when he was aged 11. Worked in thermodynamics and on the transatlantic cable. 1st Baron Kelvin. Died Largs Ayrshire.

Person, Science, Ireland, Scotland

5 memorials
Sir William Ramsay

Sir William Ramsay

Born at 2 Queen's Crescent, Glasgow. he studied in Tübingen and Glasgow. Following the discovery of helium, it occurred to him that there was room in the periodic table for a new eighth group of el...

Person, Science, Germany, Scotland

1 memorial
Dr Richard Price

Dr Richard Price

Welsh moral philosopher, Nonconformist minister and mathematician. He was also a political reformer and pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the French and America...

Person, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Wales

1 memorial
Tiberius Cavallo
1 memorial
Boris Nemtsov

Boris Nemtsov

Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov was a Russian physicist, liberal politician, and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. Early in his political career, he was involved in the introduction of reforms into the ...

Person, Politics & Administration, Science, Tragedy, Russia

1 memorial

Previously viewed

Sir Francis Bacon

Sir Francis Bacon

Born York House near Strand. Died in Highgate at Arundel House, the home of his friend, Thomas Howard, Lord Arundel. The site is now occupied by St. Michael's Church, South Grove. Travelling toward...

Person, Philosophy

11 memorials