---
title: "Isaac Newton"
chunk: 9/17
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:07:12.165802+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal and symbolic interpretation of the Bible. A manuscript Newton sent to John Locke in which he disputed the fidelity of 1 John 5:7—the Johannine Comma—and its fidelity to the original manuscripts of the New Testament, remained unpublished until 1785.
Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England for Cambridge University in 1689 and 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed. He was, however, noted by the Cambridge diarist Abraham de la Pryme to have rebuked students who were frightening locals by claiming that a house was haunted.
Newton moved to London to take up the post of Warden of the Mint during the reign of King William III in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, clashed with Robert Lucas, 3rd Baron Lucas of Shenfield, the Governor of the Tower, and secured the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley. Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon the death of Thomas Neale in 1699, a position he held for the last 30 years of his life. These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously. He retired from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercised his authority to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters.
As Warden, and afterwards as Master, of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20 per cent of the coins taken in during the Great Recoinage of 1696 were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by the felon being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convicting even the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult, but Newton proved equal to the task.
Disguised as a habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties. A draft letter regarding the matter is included in Newton's personal first edition of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which he must have been amending at the time. Then he conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers, and suspects between June 1698 and Christmas 1699. He successfully prosecuted 28 coiners, including the serial counterfeiter William Chaloner, who was hanged.
Beyond prosecuting counterfeiters, he improved minting technology and reduced the standard deviation of the weight of guineas from 1.3 grams to 0.75 grams. Starting in 1707, Newton introduced the practice of testing a small sample of coins, a pound in weight, in the trial of the pyx, which helped to reduce the size of admissible error. He ultimately saved the Treasury a then £41,510, roughly £3 million in 2012, with his improvements lasting until the 1770s, thereby increasing the accuracy of British coinage. He greatly increased the productivity of the Mint, as he raised the weekly output of coin from 15,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds. Newton has also been credited with pioneering time and motion studies, although his work was a theoretical calculation of physical capability rather than a standardised industrial productivity model.
Newton's activities at the Mint influenced rising scientific and commercial interests in fields such as numismatics, geology, mining, metallurgy, and metrology in the early 18th century.
Newton held a surprisingly modern view on economics, believing that paper credit, such as government debt, was a practical and wise solution to the limitations of a currency based solely on metal. He argued that increasing the supply of this paper credit could lower interest rates, which would in turn stimulate trade and create employment. Newton also held a radical minority opinion that the value of both metal and paper currency was set by public opinion and trust.

Newton was made president of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French Académie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, which Newton had used in his studies.