Michael Cyril William Hunter (born 1949) is emeritus professor of history in the department of history, classics and archaeology and a fellow of

Birkbeck, University of London , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

. Hunter is interested in the culture of early modern England. He specialises in the history of science in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England, particularly the work of

Robert Boyle Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders ...

. In Noel Malcolm's judgement, Hunter "has done more for Boyle studies than anyone before him (or, one might almost say, than all previous Boyle scholars put together)".

Education

Hunter read history at Jesus College,

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

from 1968 to 1972. He then attended

Worcester College, Oxford Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms ...

, where he received a

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

Career

After a brief stay at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

Hunter joined Birkbeck, University of London in 1976. Hunter's first monograph focused on the English antiquary and natural philosopher

John Aubrey John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the '' Brief Lives'', his collection of short biographical pieces. He was a pioneer archaeologist ...

. Since then he has written extensively on the history of science and intellectual thought in England during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, in particular the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. His most substantial scholarly achievement is his edition of Boyle's ''Works'' (with Edward Davis, 14 vols, 1999–2000)Reviewed by

Roy Porter Roy Sydney Porter, FBA (31 December 1946 – 3 March 2002) was a British historian known for his work on the history of medicine. He retired in 2001 from the director of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine at University College ...

'To Justify the Works of Boyle to Man'
, ''History of Science'' 39 (2001), pp. 241-48 and ''Correspondence'' (with Antonio Clericuzio and Lawrence Principe, 6 vols, 2001). From 2006 to 2009 Hunter directed the creation of a digital library focusing on British printed images before 1700. He received the 2011

Roy G. Neville Prize The Roy G. Neville Prize in Bibliography or Biography is a biennial award given by the Science History Institute (formerly the Chemical Heritage Foundation) to recognize a biographical work in the field of chemistry or molecular science. The Roy G ...

from the

Chemical Heritage Foundation The Science History Institute is an institution that preserves and promotes understanding of the history of science. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it includes a library, museum, archive, research center and conference center. It was fo ...

for his biographical work ''Boyle: Between God and Science''. He also received the 2011 Robert Latham medal from the

Samuel Pepys Club The Samuel Pepys Club is a London club founded in 1903 to do honour to the memory of Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), the English naval administrator and Member of Parliament now best known as a diarist. Origin On 26 May 1903, at the Garrick Club in ...

. In his honour, when he retired in 2013, the Birkbeck Early Modern Society held a conference on "Science, Magic and Religion in the Early Modern Period". Hunter has been a wary defender of his turf, with scholars

Steven Shapin Steven Shapin (born 1943) is an American historian and sociologist of science. He is the Franklin L. Ford Research Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. He is considered one of the earliest scholars on the sociology of scienti ...

and

Simon Schaffer Simon J. Schaffer (born 1 January 1955) is a professor of the history and philosophy of science at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and was editor of ''The British Journal for the History of Sc ...

observing he has been "consistently hostile" to their more recent work on Robert Boyle.

Personal life

Hunter is a motorcycle enthusiast who likes two-stroke racing bikes. He lives in

Hastings, East Sussex Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west at ...

Works

Other academic books include: *
John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning
'. London: Duckworth, 1975. *''Science and Society in Restoration England''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. *''The Royal Society and Its Fellows, 1660–1700: The Morphology of an Early Scientific Institution''. BSHS monographs, 4. Chalfont St. Giles:

British Society for the History of Science The British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) was founded in 1947 by Francis Butler, Joan Eyles and Victor Eyles. Overview It is Britain's largest learned society devoted to the history of science, technology, and medicine. The society's ...

, 1982. *''Establishing the New Science: The Experience of the Early Royal Society''. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989. *(with David Wootton). ''Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. *''Robert Boyle Reconsidered''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. *''Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy: Intellectual Change in Late Seventeenth-Century Britain''. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995. *''Robert Boyle (1627–91): Scrupulosity and Science''. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000. *''The Occult Laboratory: Magic, Science, and Second Sight in Late Seventeenth-Century Scotland''. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2001. *(with Edward Bradford Davis). ''The Boyle Papers: Understanding the Manuscripts of Robert Boyle''. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. *''Editing Early Modern Texts: An Introduction to Principles and Practice''. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. * ''Boyle : between God and Science'', New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. * ''The Image of Restoration Science : The Frontispiece to Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society (1667)''. London: Routledge, 2016. * ''The Decline of Magic''. London: Yale University Press, 2020

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, Michael Historians of science British book editors Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of the Royal Historical Society Living people 1949 births People from Harting