Boyle, Robert

1627 – He was born on the 25th day of January this year in Lismore Castle, in the province of Munster, Ireland, as the seventh son and fourteenth child of Richard Boyle, the "Great Earl of Cork". While still a child, he learned to speak Latin, Greek, and French.

1641 – He remained during the winter of that year in Florence, studying the "paradoxes of the great star-gazer" Galileo Galilei, who died within a league (3 miles) of the city early in 1642.

1645 – He returned to England this year, he found that his father was hospitalized and had left him the manor of Stalbridge in Dorset, together with estates in Ireland. From that time, he devoted his life to scientific research, and soon took a prominent place in the band of inquirers, known as the "Invisible College", who devoted themselves to the cultivation of the "new philosophy".

1654 - They met frequently in London, often at Gresham College; some of the members also had meetings at Oxford, and in that city, and he went to reside in this year.

1659 – He began a series of experiments on the properties of air. An inscription can be found on the wall of University College, Oxford in the High Street at Oxford (now the location of the Shelley Memorial), marking the spot where Cross Hall stood until the early 1800s.

1680 – He was elected president of the society. However, he declined the honour from a scruple about oaths.

1689 - His health, never very strong, began to fail seriously and he gradually withdrew from his public engagements, ceasing his communications to the Royal Society, and advertising his desire to be excused from receiving guests, "unless upon occasions very extraordinary", on Tuesday and Friday forenoon, and Wednesday and Saturday afternoon.

1691 – His health became still worse in this year. He passed away on 30th day of December this year, just a week after that of the sister with whom he had lived for more than twenty years. He was buried in the churchyard of St Martin's in the Fields, his funeral sermon being preached by his friend Bishop Burnet.