“We build too many walls and not enough bridges.”
— Sir Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton’s life was tragic before the young genius was even born into the hamlet of Woolsthorpe. By the time Newton was born, his father had already passed away three months before. As a beautiful moment of passing the torch from one to the next, Newton was born in the same year that Galileo died, and it could be said that Newton picked up where the Italian had left off.
Newton was born as a small, premature baby who wasn’t given a great chance to live. Born without a father, he would soon also be without a mother when he was three; his mother remarried and abandoned Newton to be raised by his grandfather. The tragic loss of his father and then the abandonment by his mother would clearly play a key role in some of the personality traits that he would develop.
For the next 9 years, he would be separated from his mother until his grandmother died. Newton resented his mother and hated his stepfather. He once wrote in his sins that he once threatened to burn them and their house. Newton would go on to be incredibly anxious and irrational, and these traits would stay with him throughout his life.
From the age of 12 to 17, Newton spent time living with a man who provided him lodgings while he studied at King’s School in Grantham. This would be the point where Newton would first develop a real interest in science as he developed a fascination with chemistry. You’d think a man who would go onto become one of the greatest minds of all-time would have done well in school, but he was more interested in knowledge outside of the classroom and wasn’t a great student.
At this time, he was removed from school, and his mother made an attempt to make him a farmer, but it was never going to work as Newton hated farming. The master at King’s
School though must have seen Newton’s talent, and he persuaded his mother to send him back to school. His mother agreed, and Newton’s academic performance increased, and he completed the year with an impressive final report.
