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big thinkers

We explore the places and spaces where the brightest of Britons conjured up ideas

that would change the worldWORDS SALLY HALES

THINK Big Charles Darwin worked on his groundbreaking theories

in the study of his home, Down House in Kent

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big thinkers

Many great Britons have shaped the modern world. From philosophy, science, the arts, politics and medicine, extraordinary people across the centuries have pulled ideas from

their minds that have not only seen them enter the history books but reshape our understanding of ourselves and our relationship with our surroundings.

But what forces shape these incredible people into individuals who are capable of this kind of singular thinking? Are great thinkers born or made? We take a look around the homes of some of Britain’s intellectual icons to find clues to their greatness.

Born in East Lothian at 1572, John Knox came to be considered the most dangerous man in the kingdom by Mary, Queen of Scots. A Protestant reformer and leader of the Scottish Reformation, he was inspired by the European Humanism movement, which created a political, religious and cultural revolution that divided Catholic Europe. Knox’s preaching was a powerful factor in Scotland parliament’s abolishing the authority of the Pope over the church in 1560 and his death 12 years later was considered a national tragedy.

During his later years, Knox lived in a house on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, near St Giles Church (which latter became St Giles’ Cathedral), where he preached despite his ill health. Now open to the public, John Knox House – which dates back to 1470 – is one of the oldest homes in Edinburgh, and is not only a evocative survivor of Old Edinburgh, but a popular tourist destination that charts the story of the Reformation.

While Knox redefined people’s relationship with God in the 16th century, the 17th century saw the birth of a man

who would fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe. Isaac Newton was born prematurely on Christmas day in a modest manor house at Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, in 1642. The baby was given little chance of survival, yet Newton would go on to be revered in his lifetime and down the centuries as a beacon of empirical thought. Yet the life he lived was far from rational: he was consumed by jealousies, rivalries and a quest for reputation. But his monstrous ego – he believed he alone was able to understand God’s creation – also drove him to brilliance.

Now run by the National Trust, Woolsthorpe Manor played an important role in Newton’s life. While the world was being ripped apart by civil war and ravaged by plague, the village escaped largely unscathed, but young Newton still endured a turbulent early life.

Isaac Newton formulated the laws

of motion and gravity while watching

apples fall from trees in the orchard at

Woolsthorpe ManorClockwise, from left: A restored section of the painted ceiling at John Knox House; a stained glass image of Knox installed in his namesake house;

Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton’s family home; apple trees in the garden sparked his discoveries; the scientist’s portrait hangs in the house PH

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His father died before he was born and, at the age of three, his mother married again leaving him with his grandmother. Isaac hated his stepfather and felt rejected. He sought solace in books, which would lead him to reject a life on the farm and head to the University of Cambridge.

Yet, ironically, he would make his most famous discoveries at the manor. When plague closed the university in 1665, Newton was forced to return home, where he formulated the laws of motion and gravity while watching apples fall from trees in the orchard. Although the legend of a hallelujah moment when an apple dropped on a dozing Newton’s head is apocryphal, you can still visit the ‘gravity tree’ – an apple tree which first put down roots around 400 years ago – in Woolsthorpe’s grounds.

Today, the manor is presented as it would have been in the 17th century with each room telling the story of Isaac’s extraordinary life, creating a fascinating insight into the role the early life of this complex man played his revolutionary thinking.

Less well-known, but no less revolutionary in his achievements is Edward Jenner – a man said to be responsible for saving more lives than any other person in history. The pioneer of the smallpox vaccination and father of the science of immunology, Jenner was born in Gloucestershire in 1749, at a time when smallpox was the greatest killer of the day.

A country doctor, Jenner made his discoveries and saw patients at his home The Chantry in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, which he owned from 1785 until his death in 1823. The Grade II listed building is now open as Dr Jenner’s House, an independent museum celebrating the man’s achievements.

Jenner vaccinated the poor from a summer house at his Gloucestershire home, The Chantry.Left: The doctor’s commitment to his country patients was vital to his work

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There is no doubt Jenner’s surroundings profoundly informed his work. He grew up immersed in country matters and, as an adult, was committed to his patients, rich and poor, covering an area of around 400 square miles in all weathers. He saw a vast array of ailments on a daily basis, sparking a fascination with country lore, which said people who caught cowpox could not catch smallpox. When he diagnosed dairymaid Sarah Nelmes with cowpox in 1796, he seized the moment and put his ideas to the test. He was right. Jenner spent the rest of his life vaccinating people and spreading the word – work that centuries later would lead to complete eradication of smallpox in 1980 – from his Gloucestershire home.

More theoretical than physical, Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution nevertheless sent shockwaves through the Victorian world. Born in Shrewsbury in 1809, his early years at Mount House sparked his curiosity in the natural world. The young Charles first went to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine, but he had little stomach for the practical elements and switched to study divinity at Cambridge. He was far from enthused by this profession either, but it left him time to follow his passion: biology. He graduated in 1831 and soon snapped up the opportunity to travel as a ‘gentleman naturalist’ on HMS Beagle’s voyage around the world.

In five years, he visited four continents, including a five-week stop at the Galápagos Islands. Contrary to popular belief, there was no eureka moment at the archipelago: his shattering On the Origin of Species came later in 1859 following many years of thought, study, reflection and worry at his beloved Down House.

Now managed by English Heritage, the Kent property remains much as it was when Darwin lived there, allowing a glimpse into this big thinker’s sanctuary as you wander around rooms filled with family portraits, furniture and personal possessions belonging to this fond father of 10. In his study is the desk and chair where he wrote and thought.

The bedroom where he died in 1882 and where, plagued by ill health, he enjoyed reading and resting for 20 years, has been newly recreated to its late-1850s appearance. From the bedroom’s large bay windows, Darwin would keep a close eye on his garden – his “outdoor laboratory” – where his experiments on plant and insect life are recreated in the greenhouse.

Unlike Darwin, Octavia Hill may not be a name on everyone’s lips but the Victorian reformer has informed every modern Briton’s life. Her impact can hardly be overstated: from welfare reform, philanthropy, arts

Down House remains much as it was when Charles Darwin lived there, allowing a glimpse into this big thinker’s private sanctuary

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Bed-bound Darwin liked to look at the

garden from his window. Below: His

experiments are recreated in the

greenhouse. Inset: Darwin‘s theories

shook the world

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reckless like her father – and expected the same from those she helped, believing the poor had to be helped to help themselves. Octavia’s housing managers sought to transform the drunken habits of the poor through personal contact, pioneering social work.

By the mid-1870s she had some 3,000 tenants in housing estates in Lambeth, Walworth, Deptford and Notting Hill that doubled as hubs of creativity, with music lessons, outings and performances. Octavia connected cultural philanthropy to social reform, understanding housing alone was not enough. She campaigned for London’s green spaces to “be kept for the enjoyment, refreshment, and rest of those who have no country house”, and co-founded the National Trust when she helped to save Alfriston Clergy House in Sussex, which became the trust’s first property.

policy and feminism to affordable housing, social work and co-founding the National Trust, her legacy is all around us.

The roots of Octavia’s passion for social reform can be found in her early life. Born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, in 1838, she was the eighth daughter of James Hill, a corn merchant – whose philanthropy left him bankrupt – and his third wife Caroline, who taught at an open school for the poor. Today the family home at Wisbech is open to the public as Octavia Hill’s Birthplace House, a Grade II listed building and museum dedicated to celebrating her influence.

When her father’s bankruptcy led to deep depression, Octavia’s mother left him and moved the family first to Finchley (then a village, not a London suburb) and later central London, got a job and encouraged her daughters to do the same. The poverty of the inner city horrified Octavia and social housing became her passion.

In 1864, her friend, the art critic John Ruskin, helped her purchase her first properties close to Marylebone High Street, for a five per cent return, which meant tenants had to pay their way. Although Octavia’s work followed her parents’ ideals, she formulated methods born of her own experiences. She was never confrontational or financially

Above: Efforts to save Alfriston Clergy House in East Sussex led to the founding of the National Trust Inset: Social reformer Octavia Hill’s ideas changed the country

Octavia Hill’s impact can hardly be overstated: from housing and philanthropy to co-founding the National Trust, her legacy is all around us

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PLANNING YOUR VISIT

John Knox HouseThe only medieval building on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile allows you to walk in the footsteps of its famous inhabitants. Open: Mon-Sat, 10am-6pm. www.tracscotland.org \

Woolsthorpe ManorEach room at the house near Grantham, Lincolnshire, focuses on a different part of Newton’s time there, along with the orchard featuring the famous ‘gravity tree’. Open: year-round, excluding Tues, 11am-5pm. www.nationaltrust.org.uk/woolsthorpe-manor

Dr Jenner’s HouseThe Chantry is a Grade II listed manor house in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, where you can visit Jenner’s study and learn about his discoveries. Open: April-Sept, Sun-Wed, noon-5pm. www.jennermuseum.com

Down HouseCharles Darwin’s home in Downe, Kent, is a site of international significance. Visit his study,

While not born in Britain, the founding father of psychoanalysis and one of the most influential minds of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud, spent the last year of his life in a charming house in Hampstead, north London, which is now the fascinating Freud Museum. He moved there with his wife and daughter Anna after the Nazis annexed Austria, where he was a professor, in 1938.

Freud was born in 1856 in Moravia (now the Czech Republic) and the family later settled in Vienna, where Freud was educated. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna and, after setting up in private practice specialising in nervous and brain disorders, published his groundbreaking The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. After the First World War, Freud concentrated on applying his theories, publishing The Ego and the Id, which suggested a new model of the mind in 1923.

After a life of constant inquiry, Freud died in 1939, following a battle with cancer, but his final home gives us an opportunity to peek inside the domestic life of a man who was capable of thinking the unthinkable. Freud’s study is preserved as it was during his lifetime: his collection of antiquities fill cabinets and surfaces, books line the walls, and the famous psychoanalytic couch, on which all of his patients reclined, is just as it was.

And who knows, maybe a visit to the fascinating places that harboured these amazing people, who matched their brilliant intellects with fearsome courage, might see a little of their magic rub off on us all?

bedroom and the gardens he loved, as well as the award-winning exhibition. Open: every day, 10am-6pm. www.english-heritage.org.uk

Octavia Hill’s BirthplaceLearn about Octavia's influence on modern life at the Grade II listed building on Wisbech’s South Brink in Cambridgeshire. Open: Mon-Wed, Sat and Sun, 1pm-4.30pm, until the end of Oct. www.octaviahill.org

Freud Museum LondonAt the house in Hampstead, you can see Freud’s study and watch rare video footage, as well as visit the gardens beloved of daughter Anna. Open: Wed-Sun, noon-5pm and, until 19 Sept, Mon, noon-5pm. www.freud.org.uk

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Clockwise, from left: Freud’s famous psychoanalytic couch; Sigmund and his daughter Anna; the pretty front of Freud's final home in Hampstead, London