Hannah Ayscough
Hannah Ayscough (pronounced Askew), was the mother of Sir
Isaac Newton. Although she left the young Isaac when he was three when she moved to
North Witham (one mile away) to live with the vicar Barnabas Smith, she looked after Isaac at
Woolsthorpe from the age of ten. By this time, Isaac had a younger half-brother (Benjamin, born 1651) and two half-sisters (Mary, born 1647 and Hannah, born 1652).
She was born in
Market Overton in
Rutland in 1623. Her father was James Ayscough (born July 1585 in
Ormskirk,
Lancashire). Her mother, Margery Blythe, came from
Stroxton in
Lincolnshire, and was born in 1585. Her parents married in Market Overton in 1609. Her brother,
William Ayscough went to
Trinity College and became a priest at
Burton Coggles. Hannah married Isaac Newton (Senior - born September 1606) on 10th April 1642 in
Cornwall. Hannah was more educated than her husband, being what we would call today
middle class. He was buried on 6th October 1642 (Julian calendar), three months before Isaac's birth. When Hannah moved, Isaac was in the care of his grandmother, Margery Ayscough. Hannah married Barnabas Smith at North Witham on 27th January 1645. In August 1653, Barnabas Smith died, and Hannah moved back to Woolsthorpe.
As his father had been a farmer, Hannah decided in 1659 to make Isaac similarly into a farmer, taking him (Isaac Newton, inventor of
gravitation and
calculus) completely away from his school studies. He spent a year away from school on the farm, at quite a critical time in his education. It was with great sadness to
Lincolnshire farming that Isaac was not suited to this vocation, but modern
physics is more than grateful for this lack of agricultural skill. Isaac went back to school in autumn 1660.
Later in his life at the age of nineteen, Isaac grew very resentful of how his mother had left him when he was young.
Her brother, unlike his sister, saw the abilities that Hannah's son had and was instrumental in Isaac going to Trinity College in June 1661. Hannah seemed to be more interested in her farm than Isaac's academic achievements.
Hannah died in 1679 in
Bodmin, when Isaac was 36. She was buried at Woolsthorpe on June 4th 1679. Isaac spent much of this year in Woolsthorpe.
*
Newton's early life*
The family and property of Isaac Newton
