Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/104

 Knights, pp. 163, 181; Official Return of Memb. of Parl.; Rushworth's Hist. Coll. i. 244, 565, i. 313; Whitelocke's Mem. (1732), pp. 34, 142, 184, 194; Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. iv. 463, 471, 13th Rep. App. i. 23, 56, 14th Rep. App. viii. 279, 283; Thurloe's State Papers, i. 79; Evelyn's Diary, 23 March 1646 et seq.; Burke's Extinct Baronetage; Dalton's Wrays of Glentworth.]

 WREN, CHRISTOPHER (1632–1723), architect, born at East Knoyle, near Tisbury, Wiltshire, on 20 Oct. 1632, was son of Christopher Wren (1591–1658), rector of East Knoyle. The father, son of Francis Wren, a London mercer, was educated at Merchant Taylors' school (1601–9) and St. John's College, Oxford. He was a well-known clergyman, acting as chaplain successively to Bishop Lancelot Andrewes [q. v.] and to Charles I. He became rector of Fonthill, Wiltshire, in 1620, and of East Knoyle in 1623. Subsequently, on 4 April 1635, he was installed dean of Windsor, in succession to his elder brother, Matthew Wren [q. v.], bishop of Hereford, Norwich, and Ely, and held that dignity till his death. In 1639 he was also appointed dean of the collegiate church of Wolverhampton and rector of Haseley, Oxfordshire. He died at Bletchingdon, Oxfordshire, on 29 May 1658. The architect's mother, Mary, daughter of Robert Cox of Fonthill Abbey, died when he was very young. The exact date has not been recovered; that she lived, however, at least two years after his birth is evident from the baptismal register at East Knoyle of her daughter Elizabeth, born 26 Dec. 1634. The boy's father lived to help and watch his progress for twenty-six years, and an elder sister took the mother's place. He was also from the first very intimate with his cousin, Matthew Wren, a son of the bishop [see under ].

When Wren was eleven, his father's sister Susan married William Holder [q. v.] the mathematician, who undertook the instruction of his nephew in that branch. During his boyhood Wren's constitution was very delicate; he grew up short in stature. At nine years of age, after preliminary instruction from a private tutor, he was sent to Westminster school, then under Dr. Busby. At Westminster Wren learnt to write Latin well, and after only one year's residence he sent a letter to his father good both in its latinity and in its filial sentiments. But it was to natural science and mathematics that he was chiefly drawn. Some extant Latin verses addressed to his father in 1645 show in elegant Ovidian metre his predilection for astronomical research (Parentalia, p. 182). In 1646, at the age of fourteen, he left Westminster. In the interval between leaving school and going to college he was chosen by Dr. (afterwards Sir Charles) Scarburgh [q. v.] as his assistant, demonstrating and making anatomical preparations and various experiments (ib. p. 187) for his lectures on anatomy at Surgeons' Hall. Shortly afterwards he was recommended to William Oughtred [q. v.] to translate into Latin his work on geometrical dialling. On 25 June 1649 or 1650 he was entered at Wadham College as fellow-commoner (, Reg. of Wadham, i. 178). The master of the college was John Wilkins [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Chester. At Oxford Wren joined a society of philosophical inquirers with whom he fully sympathised, and with whom he conducted many valuable experiments between 1646 and 1660. He graduated B.A. on 18 March 1650–1, and M.A. on 11 Dec. 1653. Shortly before the last date he was elected fellow of All Souls' College. He resided there till 1657, mainly engaged in scientific study and experiment. In that year Wren, being then twenty-five years old, succeeded Lawrence Rooke [q. v.] in the chair of astronomy at Gresham College, London. His rooms at Gresham College soon became a meeting-place of those men of science who subsequently founded the Royal Society.

On 5 Feb. 1660–1 Wren was elected Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, and he then resigned his chair in Gresham College and his fellowship at All Souls'. In 1661 Wren graduated D.C.L. at Oxford, and LL.D. at Cambridge. He retained the Savilian professorship till 9 March 1673, but before that date he had largely abandoned science for the practice of his profession of architecture.

Wren's fame rests chiefly on his architectural achievements; but had his philosophical pursuits not been interfered with by the absorbing work of the arduous profession to which he devoted himself in later life, he could not have failed of securing a scientific position higher than was attained by any of his contemporaries, with of course one exception—Newton. Before he became an architect he was acclaimed as a prodigy by reason of his scientific attainments. In 1662 Isaac Barrow [q. v.], on becoming professor of geometry at Gresham College, spoke in his Latin inaugural oration of Wren, thus: ‘As one of whom it was doubtful whether he was most to be commended for the divine felicity of his genius or for the sweet humanity of his disposition—formerly, as a boy a prodigy; now, as a man a miracle, nay, even