Life in a Revolutionary Decade in Britain (1649-1660)
Gresham College Lectures
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The Exodus of the Young Scientists
William Petty did not come from a gentry family like John Bradshaw or Hamman Lestrange. He didn't have an educated clergyman as a stepfather like Marchman Needham. His father was a small-time clothier on the south coast, and it was only misadventure as a young sailor that had caused his course to radically alter. Having been put ashore, injured and penniless, he found his way to the Jesuit university in Kong. The 1640s saw William Petty in Paris, and by 1649 he was studying anatomy in Oxford. Just a year after completing his doctorate, finds himself appointed Oxford professor of anatomy.
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