Biography

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Robert Hooke was born on 28th July 1635, in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight, where his father was curate of the church of All Saints.

After early home teaching by his father, he was educated at Westminster School and Oxford University. He spent most of his adult life living in Gresham College in the City of London, where he died on 3rd March 1703. He was buried in St Helen's church, Bishopsgate, London, but his remains, together with many others, were exhumed in the late 19th century and are assumed now to be buried in the City of London cemetery in Wanstead. A memorial window in the church, erected by "private subscription", was destroyed by IRA bombing in 1992. There is a blue plaque on a building nearby.

Apart from Waller's Posthumous works of 1705, which includes a "Life" (see the Bibliography), accounts by Hooke's contemporaries include:

  • John Aubrey, Brief lives. Full text available. Aubrey was a close friend of Hooke. His book was not published in his lifetime. This edition was published in 1898 and edited by Andrew Clark.
  • Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society of London. Full text available. The first edition of 1667 was followed by many later editions. This is the "second edition corrected", published in 1702, at the end of Hooke's life.

John Ward's account of the Gresham College professors (1740) includes a long biography of Hooke:

  • The lives of the professors of Gresham college: to which is prefixed the life of the founder, sir T. Gresham. With an appendix, consisting of lectures and letters, by the professors, with other papers. Full text available

Thomas Sprat's history was "supplemented and continued" by Thomas Birch in 1756. Birch explained in his preface that "Admired as his [Sprat's] performance is in general ... the earliest and ablest members of that body, as well as their successors, still wished that the account of its institution and progress had been more full and circumstantial in the narration of the facts related by him, and inlarged by inserting many others of equal importance which were omitted".

Although now enhanced and partially superseded by more recent scholarship, R.T. Gunther's Early science in Oxford (1930-38), is still a rich source of information on Hooke's life and work, including many facsimile copies of Hooke's writing in his own hand. Of the fifteen volumes in the series, no fewer than five are wholly devoted to Hooke. The whole series is freely available online from the Internet Archive:

The diary of Robert Hooke, 1672-1680 edited by H.W. Robinson and Walter Adams (Taylor & Francis, 1935) also includes an account of Hooke's life (password required for copyright reasons).

Societies and websites

Apart from Gunther, there are many other biographies of Hooke available online. Amongst the most useful are:

Online presentations

A number of talks and programmes about Hooke and his work are freely available online. As in his own day, Gresham College still offers free public lectures:

Online presentations elsewhere include:

Some other presentations, although still listed on the BBC website, unfortunately appear to be unavailable at the moment:

Publications

See also the books and diaries listed in the Bibliography.

 
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Memorial in Freshwater

Memorial at the junction of Hooke Hill and School Green Road, Freshwater, Isle of Wight. (Image 3)

Gresham College

Broad Street facade of Gresham College in Bishopsgate, 1740 (Image 4)

Hooke's lodgings

Hooke's lodgings (9) with observation turret above (Image 5)

At his death in 1703 Hooke was buried in St Helen's Bishopsgate. "In 1891, workmen restoring the floor of the nave had uncovered a jumble of crushed coffins, corpses and old bones. Work stopped. The remains were packed into crates and carted off to a new burial place at Wanstead, 10 kilometres away. ... As many as 1000 dead had lain under St Helen's nave. Only 10 were identified and Hooke wasn't one of them. All unclaimed bones were buried in a common grave." Stephanie Pain, quoting Michael Cooper, New scientist, 30th August 2003.

 

Memorial window in St Helens church

1930s photograph of the memorial window to Robert Hooke in St Helen's Bishopsgate, destroyed during the IRA bombings of the early 1990s. (Image 6)

Plaque near St Helens church

Plaque on a building close to St Helen's Bishopgate. (Image 7)

Monument at Wanstead Cemetery

Monument for St. Martin Outwich and St Helen's Bishopsgate, City of London Cemetery at Wanstead (Image 8)

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. View of Freshwater village and church, reproduced from an engraving by Thomas Barber in Picturesque illustrations of the Isle of Wight (Simpkin & Marshall, 1834). Image from Isle of Wight Historic Postcards, further information from Isle of Wight History Centre.
  2. Hookes Cottage on Hooke Hill, Freshwater. Photograph from The West Wight remembered, by Eric Toogood (published by the author, 1984, pages unnumbered). Much more information on this house: Isle of Wight History Centre.
  3. Memorial stone to Hooke at the junction of Hooke Hill and School Green Road, Freshwater, Isle of Wight. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
  4. The Broad Street facade of Gresham College in Bishopsgate 1740, by George Vertue (1684-1756) from Wikimedia Commons.
  5. Extracts from Vertue's drawing from vol.10 of Early science in Oxford by R.T. Gunther.
  6. Memorial window to Robert Hooke in St Helen's Bishopsgate. Destroyed by IRA bombing in the 1990s. A 1930s photograph from A London inheritance: a private history of a public city.
  7. Plaque on a building close to St Helen's Bishopgate. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
  8. Monument for St. Martin Outwich and St Helen's Bishopsgate, City of London Cemetery at Wanstead, 1921. Image from Victorian Web.

 
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Page last amended 11th August 2025