Boyle
Boyle names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Boyle RICHARD, "THE GREAT EARL OF CORK
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
RICHARD, "THE GREAT EARL OF CORK," an English statesman, born in Canterbury in 1566. In 1588 he went to Dublin, with strong recommendations to persons in power, whose patronage he obtained. In 1595 he married a lady of fortune, whose death , a few years after, left him the possessor of a considerable income. The state of Ireland at that time made land cheap and he bought Sir Walter Raleigh's estate of 12,000 acres in Cork and Waterford counties. King James I. appointed him Privy Councilor for Munster, and afterward for the Kingdom of Ireland; in 1616 he was made a peer of that realm by the title Baron Boyle of Youghal, and in 1620 he was created Viscount Dungarvan and Earl of Cork. In 1629 he was made one of the Lord Justices of Ireland, and in 1631 Lord Treasurer of that kingdom. He built and fortified towns and castles, and introduced among the people arts and manufactures; but he also put in force the severe laws of Queen Elizabeth against the Roman Catholics. In 1641 the Earl went to England as a witness against Lord Strafford , then under impeachment. Soon after his return home the insurrection of the Irish broke out, on which event he displayed his accustomed activity, enlisting his tenantry under the command of his sons. He died in 1643.
Boyle ROBERT, a celebrated natural philosopher
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ROBERT, a celebrated natural philosopher, born at Lismore , Ireland, in 1626; was the seventh son of Richard, the first Earl of Cork. After finishing his studies at Eton he traveled 1644, he settled in the manor at Stalfor some on the Continent, till, in bridge, Dorsetshire, which his father had left him. Here he devoted himself to scientific studies, to chemistry and natural philosophy in particular . He was one of the first members of the society founded in 1645, afterward known as the Royal Society. At Oxford , to which he had gone in 1652, he occupied himself in making improvements on the air pump, by means of which he demonstrated the elasticity of air . He began the study of those Oriental languages which contain the origins of Christianity, and formed connections with such eminent scholars as Pococke , Clarke , Barlow, etc. He also instituted public lectures, known as the Boyle Lectures, for proving the Christian religion. The first series was delivered by Richard Bentley. He died in 1691, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. 10-Vol. II-Cyc BOYLE'S LAW:
Boyle boil, Robert (1626-1691)
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
boil, Robert (1626-1691), an English chemist of the phlogistic period. Boyle was a quiet, modest man of good family and liberal education. He was a student at Geneva, and later he resided at Oxford, then in London. He took part in the formation of the Royal Society and held the office of president from 1680 to 1691. Boyle improved the air pump and worked persistently with gases. He enunciated Boyle's Law , that the volume of a gas varies inversely with the pressure. Boyle urged that chemistry should be studied to enlarge the bounds of knowledge, not merely to manufacture precious metals and prepare medicines, See Chemistry
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical facts stand, with one correction: Aiton's 1910 statement that Boyle "held the office of president from 1680 to 1691" is wrong — he was elected President of the Royal Society in 1680 but declined the post, unwilling to take the required oaths. Aiton's dismissal of him as a chemist "of the phlogistic period" also reads oddly today, since the phlogiston theory was systematised after his death and Boyle is now normally called a founder of modern chemistry on the strength of The Sceptical Chymist (1661). The law both accounts credit to him is still taught under his name, though it is now understood as the limiting behaviour of an ideal gas, absorbed into the general gas law, and it is often called Mariotte's law in France for Edme Mariotte's independent statement of it. The largest genuine shift is in how his alchemy is read: scholarship since the mid-twentieth century, working through his surviving manuscripts, has shown that Boyle pursued transmutation seriously all his life rather than merely urging chemists away from making "precious metals".
Written for this edition, 2026.