The King George III Collection

Public lectures on scientific subjects were an innovation of the early eighteenth century. At first they were intended as vocational training: chemistry for apothecaries and physicians, mathematics for surveyors and seamen. Then around 1705 the first lectures on natural philosophy intended for a wider public took place in Oxford, Cambridge and London. These provided simple explanations of the properties of air (pneumatics) and water (hydrostatics) but they also covered Newton's theory of gravity and ideas about the nature of light. Natural philosophy was not, and did not become, a requirement for any trade or profession. Instead the lectures were a kind of rational entertainment, one of the many diversions that developed in the early 18th century for a public who took advantage of innovations such as newspapers and coffee-houses. Natural philosophy became part of a 'polite' culture.