Sir William Petty, 1623 - 1687

This study portrays the life and times of Sir William Petty (1623-1687), a seventeenth-century physician who was intimately involved in the English colonial project. Born into a family of modest means in the county of Hampshire, Petty, after training in medicine on the continent, received his degree at Oxford before undertaking various business endeavors in Ireland that would raise him above his humble roots. By virtue of his education, religion, and political connections, Petty was in every sense a member of the elite, mingling with the likes of Christopher Wren, Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley, Robert Hooke, John Aubrey, two of the Stuart kings, and other luminaries of his age. In his long life Petty experienced the episodes of intellectual, social and political ferment which made the seventeenth century a fascinating era.