The biography of Stephen Hales, D.D., F.R.S / by Percy M. Dawson.

  • Dawson, Percy M. (Percy Millard), 1873-
Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The biography of Stephen Hales, D.D., F.R.S / by Percy M. Dawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    istry at Cambridge, was lecturing at Queen's College Cloysters, [186] and thither Hales and Stukeley used to repair, and were also witnesses of the chemical operations which Vigani was accus- tomed to perform in a room in Trinity College which had formerly been the laboratory of Sir Isaac Newton. Hales was also a student of astronomy and constructed a brass ma- chine for demonstrating the movements of the planets, and of this Stukeley made a sketch. About 1710 Hales was made perpetual curate of Tedding- ton. He afterwards accepted the living of Porlock, in Somer- set, vacating his fellowship in so doing, but this living he soon exchanged for that of Farringdon, in Hants. Teddington he made his home, though he appears to have occasionally resided in Farrington.* The date of his marriage seems to be uncertain. His wife was Mary, daughter and heiress of Dr. ISTewce, rector of Halisham. In 1721 Mary died, leaving no children. Hales never married again. In 1718 Hales waa elected Fellow of the Eoyal Society and became a member of the council of that body in 1727. In 1732 he was appointed one of the trustees of the newly- founded colony of Georgia.' In 1733 the University of Ox- ford conferred upon him the honorary degree of D. D., which was the more significant in that Hales had pursued all his studies at Cambridge In 1739 he received the Copley medal. In 1750, on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales, he was appointed, without his solicitation or even knowledge, clerk of the closet and almoner of Her Eoyal Highness the Princess Dowager. In 1753 he became one of the eight foreign mem- bers of the French Academy in the place left vacant by the death of Sir Hans Sloane, president of the Royal Society.' * Letter preserved in the Library of the Royal Society, F. D. » See L. L., Ill, 507. ' In 1734, Hales published a sermon which he had delivered at St. Brides, before the rest of the trustees of the colony, his text being Gal. VI, 2. ' Stephen Hales, D. D., is elected member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, in the room of Sir Hans Sloa7ie, Bart. Deceased. G. M., Feb., 1757, XXIII, 103. (3) 1