Richard Laughton

Richard Laughton (1670?–1723) was an English churchman and academic, now known as a natural philosopher and populariser of the ideas of Isaac Newton.

Originally from London, he was educated at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was admitted as a sizar in 1680. He graduated B.A. in 1685, proceeded M.A. in 1691, and was created D.D. by mandate in 1717.

About 1693 Laughton was chaplain to John Moore, the bishop of Norwich. In 1694 he was appointed tutor of his college, and in this capacity he acquired a reputation. John Colbatch, in his commemoration sermon preached in Trinity College Chapel, 17 December 1717, said of Laughton "We see what a conflux of nobility and gentry the virtue of one man draws daily to one of our least colleges". More colloquially, he was called a "pupil-monger". Among his pupils were Martin Folkes, Benjamin Ibbot, and Robert Greene. He encouraged the study of Newton's Principia.

In politics Laughton was a Whig. He had the backing of Simon Patrick, the bishop of Ely, in college matters, who wrote to the Master of Clare, Samuel Blythe, on his behalf in 1697. Later Moore, who succeeded Patrick in the see, acted in the same way.

Laughton became vicar of Stow-cum-Quy in 1709. He was a supporter of the Newtonian philosophy; and when in 1710–1711 he had as senior proctor to appoint a moderator for the examinations, he took on the duty himself. He brought forward questions on the Newtonian theory; and divided candidates into two classes. In the history of the Tripos, his attention to the provisions of Elizabethan statutes allowing M.A.'s to question the B.A. candidates is considered another factor in the development of a differentiated examination system.

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