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 Christi College, Cambridge, on 19 June 1696, and was admitted a fellow 25 Feb. 1702–3 (M.A. 1703, B.D. 1711). In 1733 he was created D.D. by diploma of the university of Oxford.

During his residence as a fellow he became intimate with William Stukeley the antiquary, his junior by ten years, with whom he ‘perambulated’ Cambridgeshire in search of Ray's plants. He is said to have constructed an instrument for showing the movement of the heavenly bodies, a similar contrivance to that afterwards known as an orrery. He also worked at chemistry in ‘the elaboratory at Trinity College,’ no doubt that of Vigani, built by Bentley.

He was appointed perpetual curate, otherwise minister, of Teddington, Middlesex, in 1708–9. His earliest signature in the parish register occurs on 2 Jan. 1708–9. He vacated his fellowship by his acceptance of the living of Porlock in Somersetshire, which he afterwards exchanged for that of Farringdon in Hampshire. He made his home at Teddington; but it appears from a letter preserved in the Royal Society Library that he occasionally resided at Farringdon.

He became a fellow of the Royal Society on 20 Nov. 1718, and received the Copley medal of that society in 1739. He became one of the eight foreign members of the French Academy in 1753. He was proctor for the clergy of the diocese of Winchester, and one of the trustees for the colony of Georgia. In the latter capacity he preached in St. Bride's Church, London, on 21 March 1734. The sermon, a dull one on Gal. vi. 2, was afterwards published. The plant Halesia remains as a memento of this connection, having been named in his honour by the naturalist John Ellis, governor of the colony. He was active in the foundation of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures and Commerce, now known as the Society of Arts, and became one of its vice-presidents in 1755. Frederick, prince of Wales, the father of George III, is said to have been fond of surprising him in his laboratory at Teddington. When the prince died, there was, according to Horace Walpole, some talk of making Hales, ‘the old philosopher,’ tutor to the young prince. He was not, however, appointed to this post, and Masters (History of Corpus Christi, 1755) is probably wrong in stating that Hales had ‘some share in the instruction of her [the Princess of Wales's] illustrious offspring.’ In 1751 he was appointed clerk of the closet to the princess-dowager, and chaplain to the prince her son. She seems to have retained a regard for him, for this ‘mother of the best of kings,’ as she styles herself, put up the monument to Hales in Westminster Abbey. He declined a canonry of Windsor offered to him by the king. He was an active parish priest, as the registers of Teddington show. He made his female parishioners do public penance for irregular behaviour. He enlarged the churchyard (1734) ‘by prevailing with the lord of the manor.’ He helped his parishioners to put up (1748) a lantern on the church tower, so that the bells might better be heard. In 1754 the timber tower on which the lantern stood was pulled down, and a brick one put up in its place. Under this tower, which now serves as a porch, his bones rest. In 1753 he arranged for the building of a new aisle, and not only subscribed 200l., but personally superintended the building. In 1754 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 ‘3 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.’ He had Peg Woffington for a parishioner and Pope for a neighbour. Spence records a remark of Pope: ‘I shall be very glad to see Dr. Hales, and always love to see him; he is so worthy and good a man.’ He is mentioned in the ‘Moral Essays,’ epistle ii. (to Martha Blount, l. 195). He was one of the witnesses to Pope's will (, Pope).

Horace Walpole calls Hales ‘a poor, good, primitive creature.’ His contemporaries speak of his ‘native innocence and simplicity of manners.’ Peter Collinson, the naturalist, writes of ‘his constant serenity and cheerfulness of mind;’ and it is recorded of him 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.’ He continued some at least of his parish duties up to within a few months of his death. His signature, in a tremulous hand, occurs in the Teddington register on 4 Nov. 1760. He died on 4 Jan. 1761, ‘after a very slight illness,’ his thoughts being still busy with his scientific work. He married (1719?) Mary, daughter of Dr. Richard Newce of Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, and rector of Hailsham in Sussex. She died without issue in 1721, and was buried at Teddington on 10 Oct.

Hales's work falls into two main classes, (1) physiological and chemical, (2) inven-