He was, as we have seen, entered at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in June, 1696. In February, 1702-3, he was admitted a fellow of the College. It was during his life as a fellow that he began to work at chemistry in what he calls "the elaboratory in Trinity College." The room is now occupied by the Senior Bursar and forms part of the beautiful range of buildings in the bowling green, which, freed from stucco and other desecration, are made visible in their ancient guise by the piety of a son of Trinity and the wisdom of the College authorities. It was here, according to Dr Bentley, that "the thieving Bursars of the old set embezzled the College timber[24]," and it was this room that was fitted up as "an elegant laboratory" in 1706 for John Francis Vigani, an Italian chemist, who had taught unofficially in the University for some years and became the first Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge in 1703.
Judging from his book, Medulla Chymiae, 1682, Vigani was an eminently practical person who cared greatly about the proper make of a furnace and the form of a retort, but was not cumbered with theories.
Hales vacated his fellowship and became minister or perpetual curate of Teddington[25] in 1708-9 and there he lived until his death, fifty-two years afterwards. He was married (? 1719) and his wife died without issue in 1721.
He attracted the attention of Royalty, and received plants from the King's garden at Hampton Court. Frederick Prince of Wales, the father of George III, is said to have been fond of surprising him in his laboratory at Teddington. This must surely be a unique habit in a prince, but we may remember that, in the words of the Prince's mock epitaph, "since it is only Fred there's no more to be said." He became Clerk of the Closet to the Dowager Princess and this "mother of the best of Kings" as she calls herself put up his monument in Westminster Abbey. Hales had the honour of receiving the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 1739, and Oxford made him a D.D. in 1733.
Some years ago I made a pilgrimage to Teddington and found, in the parish registers, many interesting entries by his hand; the last in a tremulous writing is on November 4th, 1760, two months before he died. He was clearly an active parish priest. He made his female parishioners do public penance when he thought they deserved it: he did much for the fabric of the church. "In 1754[26] he helped the parish to a decent water supply and characteristically records, in the parish register, that the outflow was such as to fill a two-quart vessel in 'three swings of a pendulum beating seconds, which pendulum was 39 + 2/10 inches long from the suspending nail to the middle of the plumbet or bob'." Under the tower he helped to build (which now serves as a porch) Stephen Hales is buried, and the stone which covers his body is being worn away by the feet of the faithful. By the piety of a few botanists a mural tablet, on which the epitaph is restored, has been placed near the grave.
Horace Walpole called Hales "a poor, good, primitive creature" and Pope[27] (who was his neighbour) said "I shall be very glad to see Dr Hales, and always love to see him, he is so worthy and good a man." Peter Collinson writes of "his constant serenity and cheerfulness of mind"; it is also recorded that "he could look even upon wicked men, and those who did him unkind offices, without any emotion of particular indignation; not from want of discernment or sensibility; but he used to consider them only like those experiments which, upon trial, he found could never be applied to any useful purpose, and which he therefore calmly and dispassionately laid aside."
Hales' work may be divided into three heads:
- Physiological, animal and vegetable;
- Chemical;
- Inventions and miscellaneous essays.
Under No. I. I shall deal only with his work on plants. The last heading (No. III.) I shall only refer to slightly, but the variety and ingenuity of his miscellaneous publications is perhaps worth mention here as an indication of the quality of his mind. It seems to me to have had something in common with the versatile ingenuity of Erasmus Darwin and of his grandson Francis Galton. The miscellaneous work also exhibits Hales as a philanthropist, who cared passionately for bettering the health and comfort of his fellow creatures by improving their conditions of life.
His chief book from the physiological and chemical point of view is his Vegetable Staticks. It will be convenient to begin with the physiological part of this book, and refer to the chemistry later. Vegetable Staticks is a small 8vo of 376 pages, dated on the title-page 1727. The "Imprimatur Isaac Newton Pr. Reg. Soc." is dated February 16, 1726/7, and this date is of some slight interest, for Newton died on March 20, and Vegetable Staticks must have been one of the last books he signed.