John Wilkins | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Chester | |
 | |
| Diocese | Diocese of Chester |
| In office | 1668–1672 (death) |
| Predecessor | George Hall |
| Successor | John Pearson |
| Other post | Dean of Ripon (1663–1672) |
| Orders | |
| Consecration | 15 November 1668 by Gilbert Sheldon |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1614-02-14)14 February 1614[1] |
| Died | 19 November 1672(1672-11-19) (aged 58) |
| Buried | St Lawrence Jewry,London[2] |
| Nationality | English |
| Denomination | Anglican |
| Spouse | Robina Cromwell (m.1656)[2] |
| Profession | Clergyman,natural philosopher, author, administrator |
| Alma mater | New Inn Hall,Oxford Magdalen Hall, Oxford[2] |
John WilkinsFRS (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an EnglishAnglican clergyman,natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of theRoyal Society.[4] He wasBishop of Chester from 1668 until his death.
Wilkins is one of the few persons to have headed a college at both theUniversity of Oxford and theUniversity of Cambridge. He was apolymath, although not one of the most important scientific innovators of the period. His personal qualities were brought out, and obvious to his contemporaries, in reducing political tension inInterregnum Oxford, in founding the Royal Society on non-partisan lines, and in efforts to reach out toProtestant Nonconformists. He was one of the founders of the newnatural theology compatible with thescience of the time.[5] He is particularly known forAn Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668) in which, amongst other things, he proposed auniversal language and an integrated system of measurement, similar to themetric system.
Wilkins lived ina period of great political and religious controversy, yet managed to remain on working terms with men of all political stripes; he was key in setting theChurch of England on the path toward comprehension for as many sects as possible, "and toleration for the rest".Gilbert Burnet called him "the wisest clergyman I ever knew. He was a lover of mankind, and had a delight in doing good."[6] His stepdaughter marriedJohn Tillotson, who becameArchbishop of Canterbury in 1691.
He was probably born atCanons Ashby,Northamptonshire, though some sources sayFawsley; his father Walter Wilkins (died 1623) was agoldsmith and his mother Jane Dod was the daughter ofJohn Dod, a well-knownconforming Puritan. His mother then remarried to Francis Pope, and their son,Walter Pope was a half-brother.[7][8]
Wilkins was educated at a school in Oxford run by Edward Sylvester, and matriculated atNew Inn Hall. He then moved toMagdalen Hall, Oxford where his tutor wasJohn Tombes, and graduated with a BA degree in 1631, an MA degree in 1634.[7] He studied astronomy withJohn Bainbridge.[9]
Wilkins went to Fawsley in 1637, a sheep-farming place with little population, dominated by theKnightley family, to whom he and then Dod may have ministered;Richard Knightley had been Dod's patron there. He was ordained a priest of theChurch of England inChrist Church Cathedral in February 1638.[10][11] He then became chaplain successively toLord Saye and Sele, and by 1641 toLord Berkeley. In 1644 he became chaplain to PrinceCharles Louis, nephew of KingCharles I, who was then in England.[7]
Wilkins was one of the group of savants, interested in experimental philosophy, who gathered roundCharles Scarburgh, the royalist physician who arrived in London in summer 1646 after the fall of Oxford to the parliamentarian forces. The group includedGeorge Ent,Samuel Foster,Francis Glisson,Jonathan Goddard,Christopher Merrett, andJohn Wallis.
Others of Scarburgh's circle wereWilliam Harvey andSeth Ward. This London group, theGresham College group of 1645, was described much later by Wallis, who mentions alsoTheodore Haak, anchoring it also to the Palatine exiles; there are clear connections to the WilkinsOxford Philosophical Club, another and less remote precursor to theRoyal Society.[12]
From 1648 Charles Louis was able to take up his position asElector of the Palatinate on theRhine, as a consequence of thePeace of Westphalia. Wilkins travelled to continental Europe, and according toAnthony Wood visitedHeidelberg.[13]
In 1648 Wilkins becameWarden of Wadham College in Oxford, and under him the college prospered. He fostered political and religious tolerance and drew talented minds to the college, includingChristopher Wren.[7] Although he was a supporter ofOliver Cromwell,Royalists placed their sons in his charge. From those interested in experimental science, he drew together a significant group known as theOxford Philosophical Club, which by 1650 had been constituted with a set of rules. Besides some of the London group (Goddard, Wallis, Ward, and Wren who was a young protégé of Scarburgh), it included (in the account ofThomas Sprat)Ralph Bathurst,Robert Boyle,William Petty,Lawrence Rooke,Thomas Willis, andMatthew Wren.[14]Robert Hooke was gradually recruited into the Wilkins group: he arrived atChrist Church, Oxford in 1653, working his way to an education, became assistant to Willis, became known to Wilkins (possibly viaRichard Busby) as a technician, and by 1658 was working with Boyle.[15]
In 1656, Wilkins married Oliver Cromwell's youngest sister, Robina French (née Cromwell), who had been widowed in 1655 when her husband Peter French, a canon ofChrist Church, Oxford, had died. Wilkins thereby joined a high stratum of Parliamentary society, and the couple used rooms inWhitehall Palace. Shortly before his death, Oliver Cromwell arranged for Wilkins a new appointment as Master ofTrinity College, Cambridge,[16][17] an appointment that was confirmed byRichard Cromwell who succeeded his father asLord Protector. Wilkins was there long enough to befriend and become a patron ofIsaac Barrow.[18]
Upon theRestoration in 1660, the new authorities deprived Wilkins of the position given him by Cromwell; he gained appointment asprebendary of York andrector ofCranford,Middlesex. In 1661, he was reduced to preacher atGray's Inn, lodging with his friendSeth Ward. In 1662, he became vicar ofSt Lawrence Jewry, London. He suffered in theGreat Fire of London, losing his vicarage, library and scientific instruments.[19]
Possessing strong scientific tastes, Wilkins was a founding member of theRoyal Society and was soon elected fellow and one of the Society's two secretaries: he shared the work withHenry Oldenburg, whom he had met in Oxford in 1656.[7][20]
Wilkins became vicar ofPolebrook, Northamptonshire, in 1666;prebendary ofExeter in 1667; and in the following year, prebendary ofSt Paul's and bishop ofChester. He owed his position as bishop to the influence ofGeorge Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham's approach to the religious problem of the day wascomprehension, something less thanreligious tolerance but aimed at least at bringing in thePresbyterians among the nonconformists to theChurch of England by some peaceful form of negotiation and arrangement. Wilkins too thought along these lines.[21] He had been a sympathetic reader ofJohn Humfrey's 1661 justification of his acceptance of re-ordination byWilliam Piers, having already once been ordained in the Presbyterian style by aclassis.[22]
As Wilkins was ordained, he spoke out against the use of penal laws, and immediately tried to gather support from other moderate bishops to see what concessions to the nonconformists could be made.[23]
A serious effort was made in 1668 to secure a scheme of comprehension, withWilliam Bates,Richard Baxter andThomas Manton for the dissenters meeting Wilkins andHezekiah Burton. Wilkins felt the Presbyterians could be brought within the Church of England, while the Independent separatists were left outside. It fell through by late summer, with Manton blamingJohn Owen for independent scheming for general toleration with Buckingham, and Baxter pointing the finger at the House of Lords.[24]
Wilkins died in London, most likely from the medicines used to treat hiskidney stones andurinary retention.[25]
His numerous written works include:
The early scientific works were in a popular vein, and have links to the publications ofFrancis Godwin.The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638) was followed up byA Discourse Concerning a New Planet (1640). The author highlights the similarities between the Earth and the Moon. Based on these similarities, he proposes the idea that the Moon would house living beings, theSelenites.[28][29] Godwin'sThe Man in the Moone was also published in 1638. In 1641 Wilkins published an anonymous treatise entitledMercury, or The Secret and Swift Messenger.[30] This was a small work oncryptography; it may well have been influenced by Godwin'sNuncius inanimatus (1629).[31][32] HisMathematical Magic (1648) was divided into two sections, one on traditional mechanical devices such as thelever, and the other, more speculative, on machines. It drew on many authors, both classical writers and moderns such asGuidobaldo del Monte andMarin Mersenne.[33] It alludes to Godwin'sThe Man in the Moone, for bird-powered flight.[34] These were light if learned works and admitted both blue-sky thinking, such as the possibility of the Moon being inhabitable, and references to figures on the "occult" side:Trithemius,John Dee, theRosicrucians,Robert Fludd.[35][36]
Ecclesiastes (1646) is a plea for a plain style in preaching, avoiding rhetoric and scholasticism, for a more direct and emotional appeal.[37][38] It analysed the whole field of available Biblical commentary, for the use of those preparing sermons, and was reprinted many times. It is noted as a transitional work, both in the move away fromCiceronian style in preaching, and in the changing meaning ofelocution to the modern sense of vocal production.[39][40]
A Discourse Concerning the Beauty of Providence (1649) took an unfashionable line, namely thatdivine providence was more inscrutable than current interpreters were saying. It added to the reputation of Wilkins, when the Stuarts returned to the throne, to have warned that the short term reading of events as managed by God was risky.[41]
In 1654, Wilkins joined with Seth Ward in writingVindiciae academiarum, a reply toJohn Webster'sAcademiarum Examen, one of many attacks at the time on the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and their teaching methods. This attack had more clout than most: it was dedicated toJohn Lambert, a top military figure, and was launched duringBarebone's Parliament, when radical change seemed on the cards. Wilkins (as NS) provided an open letter to Ward; and Ward (as HD, also taking the final letters of his name therefore) replied at greater length. Wilkins makes two main points: first, Webster is not addressing the actual state of the universities, which were not as wedded to old scholastic ways,Aristotle, andGalen, as he said; and secondly Webster's mixture of commended authors, without fuller understanding of the topics, really was foolish. In this approach Wilkins had to back away somewhat from his writings of the late 1630s and early 1640s. He made light of this in the way of pointing toAlexander Ross, a very conservative Aristotelian who had attacked his own astronomical works, as a more suitable target for Webster. This exchange was part of the process of the new experimental philosophers throwing off their associations with occultists and radicals.[42]
In 1668 he published hisEssay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language. In it he attempted to create a universal language to replace Latin as a completely unambiguous tongue with which scholars and philosophers could communicate.[43] One aspect of this work was the suggestion of an integrated system of measurement, similar to themetric system but which was never promoted.[44]
In his lexicographical work he collaborated withWilliam Lloyd.[45] TheBallad of Gresham College (1663), a gently satirical ode to the Society, refers to this project:
A Doctor counted very able
Designes that all Mankynd converse shall,
Spite o' th' confusion made att Babell,
By Character call'd Universall.
How long this character will be learning,
That truly passeth my discerning.[46]
[Wilkins] urged his readers to 'remember [that] we are but short-sighted, and cannot discern the various references, and dependences, amongst the great affairs in the world, and may therefore be easily mistaken in our opinion of them.'... After the Restoration, Wilkins's words seemed particularly prescient.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Warden of Wadham College, Oxford 1648–1659 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Master of Trinity College, Cambridge 1659–1660 | Succeeded by |
| Church of England titles | ||
| Preceded by Vacant | Dean of Ripon 1663–1672 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Bishop of Chester 1668–1672 | Succeeded by |
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