Portrait of Newton painted and presented to the King's School, by former teacher

Newton was admitted sizar to Trinity on 5th June 1661 and occupied the rooms to the north of the Great Gate. He gained his BA in 1665, but soon afterwards, in August 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the plague. Newton continued with his private studies at home and the following two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. It was whilst he was at home in Woolsthorpe that the idea of universal gravitation occurred to him, it is said, whilst watching an apple drop to the floor in his garden. The apple tree is still in the garden at Woolsthorpe, a clone of it is also in The King's School garden. In 1667 he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity and gained his MA in 1668, becoming Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1669 to1702. The Philosophic Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published in 1687, the completion and publication of this work being due to Halley, who paid all expenses and corrected the proofs. In this work Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws. Newton was M.P. for Cambridge University, 1689-90 and 1701-2. He became Warden of the Mint in 1696, and Master of the Mint in 1699. He became President of the Royal Society in 1703 and was re-elected annually for 25 years. He was knighted on 15th April 1705. Sir Isaac Newton died at Kensington on 20th March 1727 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

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