"Mr. Hooke, ... is the most, and promises the least, of any man in the world that ever I saw."
Samuel Pepys, diary entry for Wednesday 15th February 1664/65

Robert Hooke FRS (1635-1703) was a polymath. He discovered the law of elasticity, known as Hooke's law, and undertook research in a remarkable variety of scientific fields.

In 1662 he was appointed curator of experiments to the newly formed Royal Society of London, was elected a fellow in the following year, became Secretary from 1677 to 1682 and was a Council member on five separate occasions. As curator, a salaried post, he was the first professional scientist.

In 1665 Hooke became Professor of Geometry at Gresham College in London and moved into lodgings in the College which he occupied until his death. He gave a long series of free public lectures under the auspices of Sir John Cutler. He was a governor and teacher at the Royal Mathematical School of Christ's Hospital and designed a silver-plated badge for the pupils to wear on the left shoulder of the uniform bluecoat, still worn today.

Hooke undertook several architectural projects for private clients. Together with Sir Christopher Wren, he played a large part in the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire of 1666, and designed and supervised the construction of the Monument. In 1691 he was appointed Surveyor to Westminster Abbey.

He was an avid collector of books, and was involved in the publication of Robert Knox's An Historical relation of the Island of Ceylon, for which he wrote the preface, and in Moses Pitt's universal atlas project.

"It may justly be claimed for Hooke that he was, by his ingenuity, his comprehensiveness and his originality, the greatest inventive genius who ever lived." – E.N. da C. Andrade, FRS (Andrade, 1960).

References to Hooke are scattered around the Web. This is an attempt to start to bring them together in a structured way.

Except where otherwise stated, links are to freely accessible resources without the need for payment. Some items are available in full or in part on loan from the Internet Archive, which requires registration but is free of charge.