Robert Payne (naturalist)

Robert Payne (1596–1651) was an English cleric and academic, known also as a natural philosopher and experimentalist. He was associated with the so-called Welbeck Academy by his position as chaplain (with duties as secretary) to William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Newcastle. The position also brought him a close friendship with Thomas Hobbes.

Payne was borne at Abingdon, and was educated at John Roysse grammar school. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1611, and graduated B.A. in 1614. He was a contemporary as student of William Backhouse, who later showed him friendship at the end of the First English Civil War. In 1624 he became the second Fellow of Pembroke College. He put himself forward as candidate for Gresham Professor of Astronomy in 1626.

In 1630 Payne entered the Cavendish orbit with his nomination as rector of Tormarton by the Earl of Newcastle. A mathematical correspondence with Charles Cavendish led him out of academia. He was taken on as chaplain, by April 1632, at Welbeck Abbey, where he assumed multiple roles in the household. This period of his life, from which his notability as an intellectual figure arises, was cut short in 1638. At that point Newcastle took on responsibility for the upbringing of the Prince of Wales.

Pyle then returned to Oxford, as a canon of Christ Church. He was created D.D. in 1642, and was deprived of his living in 1646. At this period Payne did what he could to circulate the ideas and manuscripts of Hobbes in Oxford, and to reduce the hostility of Gilbert Sheldon. The Parliamentary visitation of Oxford in 1648 saw Payne deprived of his college position. He ended his life with family, in Abingdon.

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