Isaac Newton's beer mug to go on show in Royal Society exhibition in London
Issac Newton has long been a familiar figure in museums around the world. Now, one of the famed scientist's most prized possessions is due to go on display for the first time in 160 years: his beer mug.
The wooden mug will be on public display at the Royal Society, in central London, from 4 March, alongside items including Newton's greatest work, the Principia, and the scientist's death mask, which was prepared shortly after his death to serve as a likeness for sculptures.
The exhibition is the culmination of 20 years of work by the scientist Carmichael Wallace and the historian Stephen Snobelen, who pieced together the mug's history through letters, genealogical records, family wills, magazines, newspapers and even a poem.
Their research suggests that Newton only drank beer sparingly and instead, the mug points to his use of the beverage in his work. The duo's workings suggest that his best-known work, the Principia, may have been written in his homemade ink in which beer was a key ingredient.
Newton gave the wooden flagon – a type commonly used for beer-drinking – to his roommate of 20 years, John Wickins, who also acted as his occasional laboratory assistant. The mug was found with other belongings at his home at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Their research also highlights Newton's beer-related experiments, which included the study of fermentation, as well as his use of beer in the writing ink, which is still readable today in his notebooks and correspondence. Newton wrote two ink recipes, both likely penned in his beer-based ink.
Less is known about Newton's drinking habits. According to his lab assistant, Humphrey Newton, Isaac drank beer and ale with meals and only sparingly. However, there are many references to beer, ale, cider and wine in Newton's surviving papers, including household inventories, as well as discussions on the best variety of apples to produce good cider in his correspondence with Henry Oldenburg. Newton recommended redstreaks.
Snobelen said: 'The mug was venerated by the Wickins family because it was owned by Newton. It was a kind of holy relic.
'Although chemical analysis of the ink in Newton's voluminous manuscript corpus has yet to be carried out, many 17-century authors used beer as a solvent in their homemade writing ink. Newton's two surviving ink recipes confirm that he followed in this craft, at least while he was at Cambridge.'
Keith Moore, the head of library and archives at the Royal Society, said: 'We like to reflect upon past science, but a beery vision of Sir Isaac Newton is a new one for the Royal Society. According to his friends, the great man could be quite convivial, but I can't see him drinking too much from his flagon while fermenting his head-spinning ideas – as a scientist, Newton was no mug.'
The wooden 'pint flagon' – as James Wickins, John's grandson, called it in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1802 – was publicly exhibited on at least three occasions, last in 1865.
Newton was elected to the Royal Society in 1672, 12 years after its founding, and was its president from 1703 until his death in 1727.
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