Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Katherine Jones , Viscountess Ranelagh, (born Lady Katherine Boyle , born March 22, 1615 in Youghal , † December 3, 1691 in London ) was an Anglo-Irish alchemist and member of learned circles in London.

Katherine Boyle was the daughter of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork (1566-1643) and his second wife Catherine Fenton. Her siblings include the alchemist and chemist Robert Boyle and the writer and lady-in-waiting of Queen Henrietta Maria Mary Rich, Countess of Warwick (1625–1678). Nothing is known about their upbringing, but the family was wealthy and at least their brothers were raised well. When she was nine, she moved to the Beaumont family because she was to marry one of their sons. After the death of the head of the Beaumont family, nothing came of it and she moved back to her parents at the age of 13. At the age of 15 she married the Anglo-Irish nobleman and politician Arthur Jones , who inherited the title of 2nd Viscount Ranelagh in 1644 , after which Katherine carried the courtesy title Viscountess Ranelagh . The marriage was not happy, her husband is said to have been rude and often drunk. Katherine lived with her children mainly on her husband's estates in Ireland, while her husband made a career as an English member of the House of Commons in London and as an officer in the parliamentary army in the English Civil War . They had four children, two of whom reached adulthood:

In 1641 she left Ireland after the rebellion and lived in London. She made friends with John Milton (to whom she sent her nephew Richard Barry and later her son Richard as a student) and was a member of the circle of Samuel Hartlib , to which she was introduced from 1643 by Dorothy Moore (Dorothy Durie). Her brother Robert Boyle had a chemistry laboratory in her house in London (she commissioned Robert Hooke to do modifications in 1676) and they experimented together and probably collaborated scientifically. However, her interests were predominantly in pharmacy. She had contacts with Henry Oldenbourg , who was her son's tutor from 1656. That year she went back to Ireland for several years on family matters. From 1668 her brother Robert Boyle lived with her in London. They died a few days in a row in 1691 and are buried in St. Martins in the Fields.

She was a member of several academic circles that existed in London before the Royal Society was founded, including an Invisible College , which also included many of Robert Boyle's acquaintances. She was friends with the doctor Thomas Willis and tested and developed medical formulas with him, which probably also found their way into his Pharmacopeia Rationalis (1674). She herself treated acquaintances and friends with her recipes. Some of her recipe books and letters have been preserved.

Politically she represented republican ideas (constitutional monarchy), for example in a letter to Elisabeth of Bohemia in 1646, who asked her to influence King Charles I so that he could work with parliament. She also discussed the question of the relationship between the king and parliament in the Hartlib circle. She was also critical of Cromwell and retained (although a member of the Whigs) influence on supporters of the Restoration, which she used for petitions in favor of her brother Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery and the Duke of Ormond. In the Restoration she was a supporter of the Whigs.

She advocated religious tolerance with Protestants who did not belong to the Anglican Church (non-conformists). In particular, during the plague in London, she worked to ensure that these non-conformists would not be imprisoned, as provided for in an amendment to the law in 1664, if they attended religious meetings, as this amounted to a death sentence during the plague years. A Discourse on the Plague 1665 is contained in the Boyle Papers of the Royal Society.

A portrait of her hangs in Lismore Castle .

literature

  • Sarah Hutton : Jones, Katherine. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X .
  • Michelle DiMeo: Lady Ranelagh's Book of Kitchen-Phisick? Reattributing Authorship for Wellcome Library MS 1340. Huntington Library Quarterly, Volume 77, 2014, pp. 331-346
  • Michelle DiMeo: Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh (1615-91). Dissertation University of Warwick, 2014.
  • Michelle DiMeo: Such a Sister Became Such a Brother: Lady Ranelagh's Influence on Robert Boyle. Intellectual History Review, Volume 25, 2015, pp. 21-36.
  • Lynette Hunter: Sisters of the Royal Society: The Circle of Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh, Women, Science and Medicine 1500-1700. 1997, pp. 178-191.
  • Betsey Taylor Fitzsimon: Jones, Lady Katherine Viscountess Ranelagh Boyle. In: James McGuire, James Quinn (Eds.): Dictionary of Irish Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2009
  • Ruth Connolly: A Proselytising Protestant Commonwealth: The Religious and Political Ideals of Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh (1614-1691). The Seventeenth Century, Volume 23, 2008, p. 244.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Jones, Katherine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jones, Katherine, Viscountess Ranelagh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Anglo-Irish alchemist
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1615
PLACE OF BIRTH Youghal
DATE OF DEATH December 3, 1691
Place of death London