THE ASTRONOMER WHO BUILT ST. PAUL'S.

Hutt News, Volume 2, Issue 47, 1 May 1930, Page 3

THE ASTRONOMER WHO BUILT ST. PAUL'S.

.The work of making St. Paul's Cathedral safe for another hundred years, at least, is nearihg completion, and everybody, especially .'visitors to London, will be glad when they can once more see the great chuTei. in all its beauty without the disfigurement of scaffolding.

Very few people know that this magnificent pile was designed and built by a great astronomer—a man who tad hokl the post of Professor of Astronomy first in London and .then at Oxford

•University,

Stiir more surprised are most people when they hear that this astronomer designed not only St. Paul's Cathedral, but als the familiar towers of "Westminster Abbey. Tie majority who stand looking up at these towers, be-, lieve that they are:looking up at something built away back in the Middle Ages, but as a matter of fact, they

-vvere erected only; in_: the early enighteenth century. . "

>Sir Christopher' Wren.-was .;rip-t ■priginaliy^an architect >t all. .-&t. first ■it seemed as, if he would be <a doctor, for when only, fourteen years of age hc^was . chosen", by the fambus physician, Sir Charles Scarburgh, as -his assistant, and v carried out with great success various

HalJ. Later on he cure«l Charles the Second's hand of a very gainful coju-

,£iiaiiit

But his chief interest was natural •'science and mathematics,".and going up 1,0 Oxford ie took his llcgrcc,. and at Vim ugu of twenty-Jive was made lJroi:i;ss.sor of Astronomy at Gres'ham College, London.- Three years lateT he was oiec.tod Trofesaor of Astronomy at Oxford University, and this important post hehchl Lor thirteen -.years. ■?

He was no ordinary astronomer and mathematician, and were it not for the VjK't t-hat his fame was overshadowed by that of Sir Issac Newton, he would have been regarded far all time as the greatest astronomer of the seventeenth century.

Wxen was indeed one of the most amazing men that has ever lived. For versatility of tie highest order he may he Tanked with such geniuses as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. He even invented a method of blood tT&nsiVsion, a life-saving process that is now quite common. . ' Before he ever touched t architecture ' he was proclaimed a prodigy on^ac^, count of his scientific attainments, and ■Isaac Barrow, the great mathematismia 11 spoke of hini as "one of wliom it was doubtful wheher he was most to be commended for the divine facility of •his genius or fox the sweet humanity of his disposition—formerly as a boy a prodigy, now', as a man a miracle, nay., even something, super-human." And yet at this time he had done none of the work for which he is now famous. He was practically a middle-aged man before he became an architect, and then •he did such work as will live for ever. It is not without reason that Ms tomb, in the ehoiT of Paul's Cathedral bears the inscription in Latin:. "If you seek his monument, look around." It is impossible to give a list of all the beautiful buildings he designed. In addition to St. Paul's and tie towers oi Westminster Abbey there were fiftytwo churches in the City pf London and many magnificent buildings at Oxford and Cambridge. But it has been said with absolute truth that he was the worst paid architect of whom we have any record. His salaTy as the architect of St. Pa\il's was only £200 a year, and his pa-y for rebuilding the City churches only £100 a year. - ~

Perhaps the most curious building that Wren designed was . the wellknown Monument to commemorate the great Fire of London. This tall Roman. Doric column was built between 1671 and 1678, and it was originally intended by Wren for a telescope;

Christian Huygens, the famous Dutch scientist, had presented-the English Eoyal Academy:, of which Wren was President, with a large object glass £or astronomical purposes, > and Wren thought of the^ idea "of building a great hollow tube to be used with the glass as a telescope. v

The Monument Was the result; "but its height proved 'insufficient; and, in any case, the' tpp swayed v too much in the wind for it to be serviceable for suoh. a purpose. Wren therefore put a staircase inside and made .it a show place up which people could climb to view the / capital,: taat .was rising, phoenixlifce, froni the ashes of the old burned City. * , ■-.'■ .^