Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Dr Martin Lister FRS (1639-1712), Yorkshire scientist, arachnologist, conchologist, geographer, Vice-President of the Royal Society…. and Royal Physician.

A Yorkshire Philosophical Society early evening Lecture given by Anna Marie Roos, Ph.D. – Honorary Secretary, The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, Modern History Faculty, University of Oxford.

A 17th century virtuoso, Martin Lister is recognized for his discovery of ballooning spiders and as the father of conchology, but it is less well known that he invented the histogram, provided Newton with alloys, and donated the first significant natural history collections to the Ashmolean Museum.

In a lecture which she has already delivered to the Royal Society, Dr Anna Marie Roos will bring to life the significant webs of knowledge, patronage, and family and gender relationships that governed the life of a scientist and physician in the late C17th and early C18th.

Download the flyer for this event.

Further details available from: The Clerk, Yorkshire Philosophical Society, The Lodge,
Museum Gardens, York, YO1 7DR Tel: 01904 656713

Report by Peter Hogarth

Martin Lister ‘the spider man’ is best known for his study of British spiders, published in 1678, but there was much more to him than this. Establishing himself as a doctor in York in 1670, he became one of the York Virtuosi, an informal group of antiquarians, artists, and natural philosophers, who met to discuss their shared interests. He maintained a regular correspondence with the Royal Society, contributing to the Philosophical Transactions on a remarkable range of subjects. In addition to observations on medicine and natural history, Lister proposed the first geological map; he devised a form of graph to display weather data; he established that the Multangular Tower was Roman, by analysis of the size of the stones used in its construction; and he produced the first monograph on molluscs and their shells. He also corresponded with Sir Isaac Newton over a method of treating the reflecting surfaces of mirrors. In 1683, Lister moved to London, where he later obtained the post of Physician in Ordinary to Queen Anne.
Dr Roos’s talk entertainingly informed us not only about a remarkable polymath, but also about the network of relationships through which 17th-century science was conducted.

Video and podcast recordings of Anna Roos’ lecture at the Royal Society can be found at http://royalsociety.org/events/2008/spider-man/

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