Archives and records

Felicity Henderson has noted that Robert Hooke's papers "are now scattered, and although many are known there are probably a significant number that have been lost or remain unidentified" (Henderson 2009, p.93). She has summarised what is known about the manuscripts, including papers owned but not written by Hooke:

Stephen Inwood mentions manuscript primary sources for Hooke studies in the archives of the Royal Society, the British Library, the City of London, Oxford University, Trinity College Cambridge and the Mercers' Company (Inwood 2002, pp.471-2). The following links lead to search results for the phrase "Robert Hooke" in these archives. It should be borne in mind that:

  1. the surname may sometimes be recorded as "Hook" in the original documents,
  2. the forename may be abbreviated,
  3. the searches may also find records for other, unrelated, people called Robert Hooke, and
  4. archives often hold items which have not yet been recorded in their online catalogues.

Sample searches:

There are also Hooke manuscripts in other collections, including:

Hooke at the Royal Society

The Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at University College London has digitized and transcribed extracts from the Royal Society's journal books, together with the rough minutes for the period of Hooke's secretaryship of the Society and a number of supplementary papers, which were found with the manuscript and include contemporary indexes. The folio comprises over 500 pages in all.

The recovery in 2006 of this material, previously thought lost, has been documented by Robyn Adams and Lisa Jardine:

 
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Hooke's diary

Hooke's manuscript diary at the Guildhall Library (Image 1)

See also our Bibliography page for more on Hooke's diaries.

 

Hooke letter to Newton

Facsimile of a letter to Isaac Newton, written in Hooke's own hand from Gresham College, 1679 (Image 2)


References

  1. Henderson (2009): Felicity Henderson, 'Robert Hooke's archive', Script & print, vol.33 (2009), pp.92-108. Full text available (PDF)
  2. Inwood (2002): Stephen Inwood, The Man who knew too much (Macmillan, 2002).
  3. Vozar (2024): Thomas Matthew Vozar, 'Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton and the Royal Society: three unnoticed letters at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin', Notes and records of the Royal Society, vol.78, no.1 (7th February 2024), pp.189-202. Full text available

 
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Image acknowledgments

So far as we know, all of the images reproduced on this page are in the public domain. We shall immediately take down on demand any that are still in copyright.

  1. Photograph of Hooke's diary on display at Guildhall Art Gallery, 22nd July 2019, via Flickr, taken by Andrea Clayton Vail, reproduced under this licence.
  2. Facsimile of letter from Robert Hooke to Sir Isaac Newton, written from Gresham College, January 17th, 1679. Image from Early science in Oxford, by R.T. Gunther, vol. X, p.55.

 
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Page last amended 22nd July 2026