Isaac Newton’s pint flagon: beer, veneration, and the history of science

The first part of this article is the biography of a drinking vessel. The authors examine evidence that a wooden flagon that Newton is on record as giving to his Trinity College, Cambridge chamber-fellow John Wickins survives intact to the present day. This evidence includes Newton’s friendship with Wickins, a re-creation of six generations of the latter’s family, moments in the nineteenth century when the relic came into public view, and its bequest to the Hussey-Frekes of Hannington Hall. The second part links the biography of Newton with such liquids as might have been emptied into the drinking vessel. The flagon is set down within a domestic history of Newton doing the very English thing of buying, storing, and consuming beer, along with other forms of strong drink. Flowing from this are his beer experiments and the role fermentation played in his understanding of a dynamic cosmos. Finally, the authors look at Newton’s use of beer and ale as solvents for manufacturing the ink that poured from his pen into his celebrated writings on optics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, theology, Mint administration, and the management of the Royal Society. More than simply the tale of a mug, this paper contributes to our understanding of Newton’s friendship with Wickins, the Wickins family history, Newton’s posthumous veneration, the presence of beer in his personal life and his use of it for science. Although the flagon is now dry, the cup that is its story is full.