| Notes |
- Mr. Thomas Maude says, that the house in which Sir Isaac Newton was born “is a farm-house at the little village of Woolsthorpe, consisting of a few messuages in the same stile of humility, about half a mile west from Coltersworth, on the great north road between Stamford and Grantham, known to every peasant in the neighbourhood.” The learned Dr. Stukely, in a letter to the celebrated Dr. Mead, first published in the Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1772, says that Sir Isaac “was born in the manor-house, which was the family estate, where they held a court-leet, and a court-baron. This manor, which is Sir Isaac’s paternal estate, is about 30£. per annum; but he had another estate at Sustern, adjacent, which came by his mother; so that the whole was near 80£. and descends to his next heir, John Newton, who is derived from his father's second brother. I visited this place 13th Oct. 1721, and took a prospect of the church of Colsterworth, and of his house at Woolsthorpe. It is built of stone, as in the way of the country thereabouts, and a reasonable good one. They led me up stairs, and shewed me Sir Isaac's study, where I suppose he studied when in the country, in his younger days, as, perhaps, when he visited his mother from the university. I observed the shelves were of his own making, being pieces of deal boxes, which, probably he sent his book sand clothes down in upon these occasions. There were, some years ago, three or four hundred books in it, of his father-in-law, Mr. Smith's, which Sir Isaac gave to Mr. Newton of Grantham.”
source: Towers, Joseph, comp. British Biography; or, an Accurate and Impartial Account of the Lives and Writings of Eminent Persons, in Great Britain and Ireland; from Wickliff, who Begun the Reformation by His Writings, to the Present Time, Volume 7. London, UK: R. Goadby, 1772, p. 144.
- Mr. Maude informs us, that Sir Isaac made some trifling purchases near Woolsthorpe; and that “his whole estate in that neighbourhood, amounted at the time of his death to about 105£. per annum, which fell to the share of his second cousin, Robert Newton; who being dissolute; and illiterate, soon dissipated his estate in extravagance, dying about the 30th year of his age in 1737, at Coltersworth, by a tobacco pipe breaking in his throat, in a fall, occasioned by ebriety. The father of the above Robert, was John Newton, a carpenter, afterwards game keeper to Sir Isaac, and who died at the age of sixty, in 1725. It is very certain, that Sir Isaac had no full brothers or sisters; but his mother, by her second marriage with Mr. Smith, the rector of North Witham, a parish adjoining to Coltersworth, had a son and two or three daughters which issue, female, afterwards branching by marriages with persons of the names of Barton and Conduit, families of property, and respectable character, partook with the Smiths of Sir Isaac's personal effects, which were very considerable.” Fontenelle says that his personal estate when he died amounted to thirty-two thousand pounds; and he also tells us, that Sir Isaac made no will because he thought a legacy was no gift.
source: Towers, Joseph, comp. British Biography; or, an Accurate and Impartial Account of the Lives and Writings of Eminent Persons, in Great Britain and Ireland; from Wickliff, who Begun the Reformation by His Writings, to the Present Time, Volume 7. London, UK: R. Goadby, 1772, p. 158.
- AFFIDAVIT MADE BY SIR ISAAC NEWTON, BEFORE A MASTER IN CHANCERY, IN PROOF OF AND ACCOMPANYING HIS PEDIGREE.
Sir Isaac Newton, of St. James's parish in the county of Middlesex Knight, and Master and Worker of Her Majesty's Mint, voluntarily maketh Oath that this Deponent hath a deed of feoffment of John Newton, who was (as he hath reason to believe) his great grandfather's father dated the 19th day of December, in the fourth yeare of Queene Elizabeth in the yeare 1562, wherein by the name of John Newton of Westby in the County of Lincoln he settled his Estate in Wilstrope, in the parish of Colsterworth in the said County, on his five sons, Richard, George, Robert, Symon and William Newton, and their heirs successively; Which said John Newton, by agreement of time, and being called of Westby, he verily believes to have been the same person with one John Newton, whom he finds by an attested extract of the register of Basingthorp cum Westby aforesaid, to have been buried in that Church on the 22nd day of December, Anno Dom. 1563, being the yeare after the said feoffment, and likewise to have been the same person mentioned in a Visitation of Lincolnshire made in or about the year 1634, now remaining in the Herald's Colledge in London, there called John Newton first son of John Newton of Westby aforesaid, and Brother of Thomas Newton, Richard Newton, and William Newton, of Gunnerby, great grandfather of Sir John Newton, of Hather in the said County, Baronet; he having by tradition from his kindred ever since he can remember, reckoned himselfe next of kin (among the Newtons) to Sir John Newton's family, and having also, about fifty-four or fifty-five years ago, heard his grandmother Ascough (with whom he lived at Wylstrope aforesaid alias Woolstrope, till he was about eleven years old, and who at that time frequently conversed with the Deponent's great Uncle Richard Newton) say, that he, this Deponent, was or had been next heir att law to Mr Newton, of Hather, until the birth of Mr Newton's children, who were then two or three infants, and that he and they were cousins two or three times removed, or words to that purpose, and he, this Deponent, believing that his said Grandmother, upon the marriage of her daughter with his father, might learn the kindred, and that his grandfather Newton, to promote the marriage, might be forward to speak of itt, representing himself cousin once removed, and next heir to said Mr Newton att, that time six or seven years under age, afterwards father to Sir John Newton. And further this Deponent saith, that Richard Newton first above mentioned is great grandfather and first son of the second John Newton, enjoyed the said estate at Woolstrope, according to the said Settlement, as appears by a deed in this Deponent's possession, of settlement of the said estate on this Deponent's father and mother, dated the 30th day of December, in the 15th yeare of King Charles the First, 1639, made by Robert Newton, the eldest son of the said Richard, and this, Deponent's grandfather, wherein are these words (and which formerly descended and came unto the said Robert Newton after the death of Richard Newton, father to the said Robert Newton), and this Deponent saith, that he finds by an attested copy of the register of Colsterworth cum Woolstrope aforesaid, that one Richard Newton was buried there the 30th day of April 1588 whom he believes to be the same Richard, his grandfather's father. And the said Robert Newton he finds to have been buried at Colsterworth aforesaid by the said extract, on the 20th day of September 1641 leaving issue three sons, first, Isaac Newton mentioned, in the said deed of settlement of the 15th of King Charles the First, and whom he finds by Colsterworth register to have been baptized the 21st of December 1606; secondly, Robert Newton, baptized likewise the 27th of September, 1607, who lived afterwards at Counthorp in the same county, and whose issue are still living: and thirdly, Richard Newton baptized likewise there the 9th of April 1609, who lived at Colsterworth, and left issue still remaining there. And further this Deponent saith, that the said Isaac, this Deponent's father married Hannah daughter of James Ascough of Market Overton in the County of Rutland, Gentleman, and that he was buried at Colsterworth aforesaid, on the 6th day of October, 1642, seized of the said estate of Woolstrope, which is descended to, and now is enjoyed by, this Deponent his only child, who was born the 25th of December, and baptized the 1st day of January in the said yeare 1642. This deponent's mother, Hannah Ascough remarried to Barnabas Smith, Rector of North Witham in Lincolnshire, by whom she had issue Mary, Benjamin, and Hannah, each of which have issue remaining.
In witness whereof this Deponent hath hereunto put his hand and seale, this two and twentieth day of November, Anno Dom. 1705.
Isaac Newton [seal]
Jurat 22nd die Novembris, 1705.
Coram me Mag’ro Cancell. S. Keck.
source: Genealogical Memoranda Relating to the Family of Newton. London, UK: Taylor and Company, 1871.
- Isaac Newton, only child of Isaac & Hannah, born 25 Dec. 1642 and baptized at Colsterworth Jan. 1st 1643 Lord of the Manor of Woolstrope aforesaid, Master of Arts, late Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge Warden of the Mint, by patent dated 13th April 1696 now Master and Worker of the said Mint, by patent, dated 3rd Febr. 1699, and President of the Royal Society; knighted at Trinity College in Cambridge 16 April Anno 1705 by her present Majesty Queen Anne and living in St. James Parish in Middlesex this 20th day of November 1705. {Died 20th buried in Westminster Abbey 28 March 1727.]
source: Genealogical Memoranda Relating to the Family of Newton. London, UK: Taylor and Company, 1871.
- The John Newton, of Westby, with whom the Visitation pedigree of 1634 begins, was Sir Isaac Newton’s great-great-grandfather, the descent being through the third son, Richard. The first two Johns in this pedigree shall be distinguished as John II and John III. John II seems to have been the son of an earlier John (see below), whom we will call John I. Now, the evidence of wills and parish registers shews that Sir Isaac Newton, in 1705, not having before him the evidence to be obtained from the family wills, failed to distinguish between John II and John III, and concluded that the latter was the John who bought an estate in Woolsthorpe, and dying in 1562, was his ancestor. This mistake led him to misinterpret the quite accurate Visitation pedigree of 1634; and the same error has been perpetuated by Mr Larken, Mr Mirehouse, and Canon Maddison, who all, very pardonably, followed the great man’s guidance. Sir Isaac’s pedigree of 1705 is printed below (Pedigree no. III). He stated in his affidavit that the deed of 1562 was then in his possession, by which document John Newton II settled the land which he bought in Woolsthorpe on his sons Richard, George, Robert, Simon, and William Newton, and their heirs, in succession. This settlement, seemingly, led Sir Isaac to the conclusion that Richard was the eldest son, since he came first in the entail, and from this it followed that he could not be the Richard named in the second generation of the pedigree of 1634 (Pedigree no. I), and in the same generation of his own pedigree of 1705 (Pedigree no. Ill), because that Richard was the third son. The evidence now available proves that Sir Isaac’s ancestor was the third, but second surviving, son, Richard, of whom Newton said: 'what became of him, or his descendants, is not yet known.’ The correct descent is given in the Pedigree no. IV, below.
The pedigree of 1634 states that John Newton II was descended from the Newtons of Lancashire. If this is correct, the migration probably took place not later than the first quarter of the sixteenth century, for the family was settled at Westby and in the neighbourhood in 1524. The story of the Lancashire origin of the family is the less improbable from the fact that, in the sixteenth century, there was, for a cause which has still to be explained, a considerable incursion of Lancashire families into Lincolnshire. At one time Newton seems to have played with the notion that his family was descended from a noble Scottish house of Newtown, a derivation for which there appears to be no evidence at all. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was considered more desirable than it is now for new men, who had become eminent, to establish a descent from an armigerous family; and there are many instances of venial officials who were ready for a sufficient consideration, to accept bogus pedigrees. The pedigree, however, which was entered in the College of Arms in 1705, on the strength of the affidavits of Newton and his cousin. Sir John Newton, was perfectly genuine, (though mistaken in an important particular, as mentioned above), and contained no suggestion of either a Lancashire or a Scottish descent. The available evidence proves a descent from a yeoman at Westby m the time of Henry VIII, whose father seems to have been in a humbler social position than himself, and who had relatives in the same and neighbouring parishes. The presumption, therefore, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, is that the family was one of native Lincolnshire descent, which took its name from one of the several places called Newton in the county. The family is found at Newton by Folkingham, within ten miles of Westby, in the reign of Elizabeth.
source: Foster, Charles Wilmer. "Sir Isaac Newton's Family," Reports and Papers of the Architectural and Archaeological Societies of the Counties of Lincoln and Northampton, Volume 39, Parts 1-2. Associated Architectural Societies, 1928.
- John Newton, yeoman, of Colsterworth, born circa 1707. He was heir-at-law to Sir Isaac Newton, and inherited his property at Woolsthorpe and Sewstern. Sir D. Brewster, in his Life of Newton, says of John that he became a worthless and dissolute person who very soon wasted the ancient patrimony, and falling down with a tobacco pipe in his mouth when drunk, it broke in his throat and put an end to his life at the age of thirty. He sold the manor of Woolsthorpe to Mr Edmund Tumor, of Stoke Rochford, in 1723. He left, however, the income of an estate in Colsterworth and Woolsthorpe, to his mother Martha for her life, and the reversion of the estate to his two sisters, Mary Bridges and Alice Newton. He was buried at Colsterworth, 22 June, 1737. His will was dated 31 May, 1737, and proved 2 October following, by his mother, the executrix.
source: Foster, Charles Wilmer. "Sir Isaac Newton's Family," Reports and Papers of the Architectural and Archaeological Societies of the Counties of Lincoln and Northampton, Volume 39, Parts 1-2. Associated Architectural Societies, 1928.
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1642 - 1727 (84 years)
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5] 
