December i, 192 i] 



NATURE 



437 



Science in Westminster Abbey. 

 Bv Eng.-Com. Edgar C. Smith, O.B.E., R.X. 



THE ceremony of unveiling a memorial in West- 

 minster Abbey to the memory of the late 

 Lord Rayleigh, which was held yesterday, Novem- 

 ber 30, may perhaps lend interest to a short account 

 of the memorials to men of science already there. 

 These memorials are more numerous than is 

 g-enerally supposed. There are few branches of 

 science unrepresented, and in some directions the 

 scientific activity of the nation is faithfully re- 

 flected by the men either buried or commemorated 

 within the Abbey walls. Though interments have 

 taken place in the Abbey for many centuries, it is 

 only within the last two hundred years or so that 

 any man of science has been buried there. The 

 earliest British representative of science com- 

 memorated is the young astronomer, Jeremiah 

 Horrocks, who died in 1641, a year or two after 

 he had watched the transit of Venus. Astronomy 

 is further represented by Adams and Sir John 

 Herschel, but it is rather surprising that none 

 of the Astronomers Royal^FIamsteed, Halley, 

 Bradley, Maskelyne, or Airy — is commemorated. 

 Mathematics and physics can show memorials to 

 Barrow, Newton, Spottiswoode, Thomas Young, 

 Joule, Stokes, and Kelvin ; geology is represented 

 by Woodward, Buckland, and Lyell ; chemistry by 

 Sir Humphry Davy ; while Darwin, Wallace, and 

 Hooker are the three outstanding naturalists. 

 Surgery, medicine, and engineering all have 

 memorials of interest, and to some of these brief 

 reference will be made. 



The first man of science of note to be buried 

 in the Abbey was Sir Robert Moray, who played 

 a very important part in the foundation of the 

 Royal Society, and held the oflfice of presi- 

 dent up to the time of its incorporation. His 

 grave is in the south transept. In his younger 

 days an officer in the French army, Moray was 

 royalist to the core, and received his knighthood 

 from Charles I. He was also a favourite with 

 Charles H., and though it is said that he " had no 

 stomach for public employment," he served his 

 Sovereign in various capacities. Of him Wood 

 said that he was " a renowned chymist, a great 

 patron of the Rosicrucians, and an excellent mathe- 

 matician," w^hile Burnet pronounced him "the 

 wisest and worthiest man of the age." Moray 

 is among the first of many fellows of the Royal 

 Societv commemorated in the Abbey, and the first 

 of several presidents buried there. It was he who 

 proposed Hooke as curator to the society. He 

 died suddenlv, July 4., 1673, in his pavilion in the 

 i^ardens of Whitehall, and his funeral was carried 

 out at the expense of Charles II, 



Two years later the Abbey witnessed the inter- 

 ment of Thomas Willis, who as a young bachelor 

 of medicine at Oxford had taken part in the meet- 

 ings of the philosophers at the lodgings of 

 ^^'ilkins, Petty, and Boyle. Like Moray, a staunch 

 royalist, at the Restoration he was made Sedleian 

 NO. 2718, VOL. 108] 



professor of natural philosophy in the place of 

 the ejected Joshua Crofts. Afterwards he gained 

 much celebrity as a London doctor, his fame being 

 such that it was said "that never any physician 

 before went before him or got more monev vearly 

 than he." His death took place in his house in 

 St. Martin's Lane, November 11, 1675, and a 

 week later he was buried beside his w^ife in the 

 Abbey, "an honour which he well deserv-ed on 

 account of his anatomy of the brain and the dis- 

 covery of saccharine diabetes." The cost of his 

 funeral is given at 470Z. 



In 1677 the Abbey saw the burial cf Isaac 

 Barrow, the celebrated mathematician and divine. 

 First to hold the Lucasian chair of mathematics 

 at Cambridge, Barrow in 1669 had resigned in 

 favour of his pupil, Newton, and during the last 

 three years of his life was master of Trinity. He 

 died on May 4, and was buried not far from 

 Moray in the north transept — now known as 

 Poets' Corner. "He had come," says Stanlev, 

 " as master after master had come, to the election 

 of Westminster scholars, and was lodged in one 

 of the canonical houses * that had a little stair to it 

 out of the cloisters ' which made him call it ' a 

 man's nest.' He was there struck with high fever 

 and died from the opium which, by a custom con- 

 tracted when at Constantinople, he administered to 

 himself." Another account says he died "in a 

 mean lodging at a saddler's near Charing Cross." 

 Moray, Wallis, and Barrow appear to be the only 

 men of science buried in the Abbey during the 

 seventeenth century. 



The majority of the graves and monuments to 

 men of science are found in the nave and the north 

 aisle. Best known of all is the monument to 

 Newton in the screen of the choir. Of the long 

 inscription upon it Johnson said : " Had only the 

 name of Sir Isaac Newton been subjoined to the 

 ■ design upon the monument instead of a long 

 detail of his discoveries, which no philosopher can 

 want, and which none but a philosopher can 

 understand, those by whose direction it was raised 

 had done more honour both to him and them- 

 selves." The gravestone close by bears the 

 words : " Hie dispositum est quod mortale fuit 

 Isaaci Newtoni." Voltaire was at Newton's 

 funeral, and afterwards wrote : " Newton was 

 honoured as he deserved to be both in his life- 

 time and after his death. The chief men of the 

 nation contended for the honour of bearing the 

 pall at his funeral. Go into W'estminster Abbey ; 

 admiration is not paid to the tombs of the kings, 

 but to the monuments which the gratitude of the 

 nation has erected to the greatest men who have 

 contributed to its glor\'. Their statues are to be 

 seen there like those of the Sophocles and the 

 Platos at Athens, and I am convinced that the 

 mere sight of these glorious monuments has 

 stimulated more than one spirit, and has formed 



