Newton’s Tyranny: The Suppressed Scientific Discoveries of Stephen Gray and
John Flamsteed by David Clark and Stephen P. H. Clark, W. H. Freeman,
£15.95, ISBN 0716742152
ADVERSARIAL histories of science, in which an underdog genius receives rough
treatment at the hands of the “scientific establishment”, have enjoyed
considerable popularity in the wake of Dava Sobel’s Longitude (1996).
But while adversarial books can make for gripping reading and serve an excellent
purpose in encouraging people to take an interest in the history of science,
professional historians tend to be wary of them. The past, no less than the
present, cannot be understood in terms of black and white.
So it might come as a surprise to Sobel’s readers to learn of Isaac Newton’s
appalling treatment of several of his colleagues, including Robert Hooke and
John Flamsteed. His behaviour has been explored in several scholarly works over
the past few decades, including Lesley Murdin’s Under Newton’s Shadow
(1985) and my own book Introduction and Notes to the Preface of John
Flamsteed’s Historia Coelestis Britannica (1982). As his fame increased
after the publication of Principia in 1987, Newton became very aware of
his burgeoning international status and extremely alert in the defence of his
intellectual territory.
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Much recent historical scholarship has been concerned with interpreting
scientific history within a broader cultural context. This can teach us a lot
more than a simple narrative about venerable geniuses who “got it right”, in
contrast with a lumpen proletariat of also-rans who either got it wrong, loyally
served the geniuses, or else—heaven forbid—dared to contradict
them.
Traditionally, Flamsteed has been put in the last of these categories: a
working observational astronomer whose churlishness irritated the great Newton,
and to whom history administered the sound whipping he deserved. The same
applies to Robert Hooke for daring to claim (quite justifiably, as we now know)
an important stake in the formulation of the inverse square law. And what could
a “humble dyer” like the astronomer and pioneer of electricity, Stephen Gray,
expect when he sided with Flamsteed in the face of the mighty Sir Isaac?
While in no way decrying the originality of Newton’s own achievements, David
Clark and Stephen Clark, the authors of Newton’s Tyranny, explore
Newton’s ill-treatment of his colleagues in this elegantly written and
accessible book.
We are told how in 1696 Newton tried to push the meticulous Flamsteed to
complete his Greenwich observations so that Newton could use them to perfect his
own lunar theory.
Yet Flamsteed would not release data with which he was not satisfied, nor
would he be bullied. Later, with his burgeoning fame, court connections, and the
presidency of the Royal Society behind him, Newton extracted observations from
Flamsteed on the pretext of publishing them officially.
But when Flamsteed’s
foe and Newton’s friend Edmond Halley finally saw the observations into print in
1710, they were riddled with errors, and Halley’s Preface accused
Flamsteed of neglect.
Yet Flamsteed was the founder of modern coordinate astronomy, a pioneer of
instrument design and error analysis, and a physical scientist of genius in his
own right.
Gray, on the other hand, was a figure in more modest circumstances. But
though he was only a Canterbury tradesman, it is still likely he received a
classical education at the King’s School there, and he clearly enjoyed
sufficient leisure amid his business commitments to master mathematics and
astronomy, conduct fundamental researches into the transmission of electrical
currents, and write confident, educated letters.
I was therefore unhappy with the authors’ constant emphasis on Gray’s
“humble” circumstances. For though we do not know precisely why Gray’s dyeing
business failed, he nonetheless came from an established Canterbury family and
was a freeman of the city, while his brother became mayor. To claim that Gray’s
contact with scientists like Flamsteed and Newton “would normally have been
beyond someone of so lowly a social station” suggests a lack of familiarity with
17th-century social protocol.
In fact, all the leading figures in Newton’s Tyranny came from
similar social backgrounds: Newton’s father was a yeoman farmer, Flamsteed had a
brewer for a father, while Gray was the son of a dyer and Hooke’s father was a
clergyman. Each had been classically trained in a good grammar school.
And when, in his state of financial distress, Gray was admitted to London’s
Charter House in 1719, it was as a “gentleman pensioner”. Does one really have
to play up the “humbleness” of the hero as a way of enhancing Newton’s
conspicuous hauteur?
I wish that some of these matters had been examined in more detail, and also
that the book had given more extensive bibliographical information and
references for its quotations. On the other hand, I believe that Newton’s
Tyranny opens up an aspect of Newton’s personal and professional conduct
that has not yet been looked at by the more accessible literature in the history
of science.
