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Henry Oldenburg

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Henry Oldenburg 1615 -1677

A Bremen born diplomat who settled in London. An officer of the Royal Society. He was a lifelong friend to Baruch de Spinoza. He was very impressed with Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz.

The History of the Royal Society states: “The origins of the Royal Society lie in a group of men who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss the new philosophy. Its official foundation date is 28 November 1660, when 12 of them met at Gresham College after a lecture by Christopher Wren, the Gresham Professor of Astronomy and decided to found ‘a College for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning’. This group included Wren himself, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, Sir Robert Moray, and William, Viscount Brouncker.

The Society was to meet weekly to witness experiments and discuss what we would now call scientific topics. The first Curator of Experiments was Robert Hooke. It was Moray who first told the King, Charles II, of this venture and secured his approval and encouragement. At first apparently nameless, the name The Royal Society first appears in print in1661 and in the second Royal Charter of 1663, the Society is referred to as Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge.

The Society found accommodation at Gresham College and rapidly began to acquire a library (the first book was presented in 1661) and a repository or museum of specimens of scientific interest. After the Fire of 1666 it moved for some years to Arundel House, London home of the Dukes of Norfolk, and it was not until 1710 under the Presidency of Isaac Newton, that the Society acquired its own home, two houses in Crane Court, off the Strand.

In 1662 the Society was permitted by Royal Charter to publish and the first two books it produced were John Evelyn’s Sylva and Micrographia by Robert Hooke. In 1665, the first issue of Philosophical Transactions was edited by Henry Oldenburg, the Society’s Secretary. The Society took over publication some years later and Philosophical Transactions is now the oldest scientific journal in continuous publication.

From the beginning, Fellows of the Society had to be elected, although the criteria for election were vague and the vast majority of the Fellowship were not professional scientists. In 1731 a new rule established that each candidate for election had to be proposed in writing and this written certificate signed by those who supported his candidature. These certificates survive and give a glimpse of both the reasons why Fellows were elected and the contacts between Fellows. …”