On this day in 1643, in the village of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Isaac Newton entered the world. Although to the people then, it wasn’t January 4—it was Christmas Day, 1642.
The great adjustment of dates that took place in 1752 changed calendars retrospectively—the shift from the Gregorian to the Julian calendar in Britain (and to January 1 being the start of the year, instead of March 25), required the skipping of 11 days that September, so people went to bed on September 2nd, and woke up on September 14th. So Isaac Newton’s birthday slid into January, and from 1642 to 1643. (Washington’s birthday also got moved, from Feb 11, 1731, O.S., to Feb 22, 1732, N.S.)
Isaac Newton
These kinds of accounting adjustments in the world around us make history slippery; what was real then, is not now. Isaac Newton, father of modern physics, famed victim of rogue fallen apple, lived in a world of unreality, too. He believed in alchemy, and magic—as did many of his time. Witchfinders stalked the land, with political power behind superstition.
But he changed our understanding of the real. In between his work as a scholar, he was appointed to be Warden of the Royal Mint, and there took on a major role—stabilizing the currency. In the Spring of 1696 he joined the Mint—in what had been to that point a medieval patronage gig. Little was expected in such a role. No Warden had previously taken much of an interest in the activities of the Mint’s clerks, who were tasked with tracking counterfeiters.
Newton, however, took it seriously.
England’s currency at the time was based on a silver standard. Coins were made of silver and weighed fixed amounts, dictating their value. This was a challenge when the value of silver, relative to other goods, fluctuated. England was in debt thanks to ongoing wars; its coins were often worth more (as bullion) than their face value in pounds. Silver coin was taken from the country to be sold in markets abroad.
A popular currency crime was “coin clipping” (cutting or shaving a small amount of silver from the edge of coins, and filing the coin down or even melting and recasting with a lower percentage of silver). Counterfeiting and clipping were capital crimes, but apparently widespread. Newton started cracking down.
He interviewed alleged coin clippers and counterfeiters, traced criminals to their homes, and visited the prisons to find accomplices. He helped draft the Coin Act of 1796, which penalized coin manufacture of any kind. But he went bigger: launching the Great Recoinage.
Coins in circulation were collected by the Mint, melted down, and reminted at fixed weights. This involved a production line of 500 men, and branch mints at different cities around the country. It took four years to smelt most of England’s money supply.
In 1699, Newton was promoted to Master of the Mint, a role he held until his death in 1727. He applied scientific precision to creating regular coins, and hired an engraver to create more beautiful designs.
Later he would play a role in fixing the value of the gold guinea at 21s, inadvertently helping to move England from the silver to the gold standard.
His own fascination with metallurgy and magic made him a focused administrator. It didn’t make him much of an investor—he lost a fortune in the South Sea Bubble, reportedly saying, “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of men.”
But his steady hand helped England’s currency stay strong, through a turbulent period. He knew that people had to trust the system for the system to work. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705.
After his death, Newton would appear on coins himself—the first time though not on official currency. Newton was used on unofficial halfpenny “tokens” issued by private businesses in the 1790s, to deal with the fact that there were not enough coins in circulation in the growing economy.
But he changed our understanding of the real. In between his work as a scholar, he was appointed to be Warden of the Royal Mint, and there took on a major role—stabilizing the currency. In the Spring of 1696 he joined the Mint—in what had been to that point a medieval patronage gig. Little was expected in such a role. No Warden had previously taken much of an interest in the activities of the Mint’s clerks, who were tasked with tracking counterfeiters.
Newton, however, took it seriously.
England’s currency at the time was based on a silver standard. Coins were made of silver and weighed fixed amounts, dictating their value. This was a challenge when the value of silver, relative to other goods, fluctuated. England was in debt thanks to ongoing wars; its coins were often worth more (as bullion) than their face value in pounds. Silver coin was taken from the country to be sold in markets abroad.
A popular currency crime was “coin clipping” (cutting or shaving a small amount of silver from the edge of coins, and filing the coin down or even melting and recasting with a lower percentage of silver). Counterfeiting and clipping were capital crimes, but apparently widespread. Newton started cracking down.
He interviewed alleged coin clippers and counterfeiters, traced criminals to their homes, and visited the prisons to find accomplices. He helped draft the Coin Act of 1796, which penalized coin manufacture of any kind. But he went bigger: launching the Great Recoinage.
Coins in circulation were collected by the Mint, melted down, and reminted at fixed weights. This involved a production line of 500 men, and branch mints at different cities around the country. It took four years to smelt most of England’s money supply.
In 1699, Newton was promoted to Master of the Mint, a role he held until his death in 1727. He applied scientific precision to creating regular coins, and hired an engraver to create more beautiful designs.
Later he would play a role in fixing the value of the gold guinea at 21s, inadvertently helping to move England from the silver to the gold standard.
His own fascination with metallurgy and magic made him a focused administrator. It didn’t make him much of an investor—he lost a fortune in the South Sea Bubble, reportedly saying, “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of men.”
But his steady hand helped England’s currency stay strong, through a turbulent period. He knew that people had to trust the system for the system to work. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705.
After his death, Newton would appear on coins himself—the first time though not on official currency. Newton was used on unofficial halfpenny “tokens” issued by private businesses in the 1790s, to deal with the fact that there were not enough coins in circulation in the growing economy.
Perhaps as a nod to his work as a scientist, a Caduceus is on the other side.
But he would be featured on British currency, including the £1 banknote issued in 1978.
His impact on the economy would last, along with his impact on the world of science, even as he downplayed his own genius: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
Katrina Gulliver is Editorial Director at FEE. She holds a PhD from Cambridge University, and has held faculty positions at universities in Germany, Britain and Australia. This article was sourced HERE
5 comments:
Very interesting, but getting the calendar replacement back to front isn't a great look in terms of proof reading. Just proves we all make mistakes.
Having New Year in late March actually makes more sense than 1 Jan as it makes the New Year coincide with the advent of spring, which has been observed as the beginning of a new annual cycle for millennia. January 1 as day 1 of the year goes back to the Romans and their god Janus.
That's spring in the Northern Hemisphere, of course - not much use to us down here! More aligned with us would be the French Revolutionary Calendar of 1793 which kicked off the new year in late September (their autumn, our spring) but Napoleon went and abolished that in 1806!
While Isaac Newton was deeply involved in alchemy natural magic and biblical prophesy, suggesting a world where the occult intertwined he is on record as rejecting belief in the occult , witches or sorcery. His 'natural philosophy' he pursued through alchemy was quite mechanistic and sought to understand God's hidden laws in the natural world.
Leibnitz accused Newton of bringing the occult into science with his inverse square law for the gravitational forces between bodies. The problem was that Leibnitz and Descartes did not believe in a vacuum but a Universe full of matter.
Distinctions between what we now consider to be 'science' and 'the occult' were not very clear in those days. For instance, astrology was regarded as a dinkum science, but was called astronomy; the term 'astrology' did exist but referred to fortune-telling, which invoked the Witchcraft Act.
Getting into the minds of people so long ago requires a profound knowledge base of the period in question. A modern-day science graduate and a 17thC 'natural philosopher' would have had great difficulty in understanding where the other was coming from.
Newton in particular moved from engaging with astrology to dismantling its predictive power through science, while still acknowledging a divine , ordered cosmos that his deeper studies in alchemy and theology.
Newton was an extraordinary prolific writer of work , comprising an estimated 4-5 million words. Because much of Newton's non -scientific writings remained unpublished for centuries , until the 20th and 21st centuries the Newton Project has been set up dedicated to transcribing and publishing his complete written legacy in alchemy and theology. It is the work of specialists in scientific history and philosophy to help us understand it .
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