Sir Isaac Newton – A Prominent Part of Kensington History

When you’re staying at a Kensington hotel, you’re close to the origin of one of the most influential scientific stories of all time – that of Sir Isaac Newton, gravity and the famous apple.

Correcting the myth

This is one of the most interesting stories in the whole of human scientific history yet it’s often misrepresented. What actually happened was that many years after the event, the by now famous Sir Isaac Newton relayed a story to a friend, while the former was living in Kensington – not far from many a Kensington hotel of today.

The story went that Newton had noticed an apple falling (or fallen) from a tree. He started to ask himself just why it fell downwards - that was the start of what would become the science of gravity, and many of Newton’s famous ideas and mathematical tools.
What’s interesting about this story is that today it’s often recounted that he’d been "hit on the head" by a falling apple, or in some variants, "hit on the head while sleeping under an apple tree". In fact, neither is correct and he made no such claim!

Why was Newton in Kensington?

In 1688, England rejected the rightful King of the time, James II, due to his Catholicism in what was called The Glorious Revolution - though some argue it should be more correctly called the Dutch Conquest. They offered the crown with unrestrained enthusiasm to William III of Orange (Holland). His English Princess wife Mary was in fact the deposed James II’s daughter, and the pair went on to rule as joint monarchs. As Protestants, they were seen as religious liberators.

London’s supposedly unhealthy air was not agreeable to William, who suffered ill health in the form of asthma. He therefore moved the court out of town to the fresh air of Kensington, which, at the time, was just a village. Unsurprisingly, money and influence followed the court and thus began the development of the suburb into one of the most desirable and fashionable parts of London.

By 1725, the suburb still enjoyed a reputation as being a place of good-health, so it was small wonder that as his health declined, Sir Isaac Newton chose to rent a house there. Even today that ‘green environment’ is still an influential factor in people choosing a Kensington hotel when visiting London.

Prior to moving here, Newton had already completed much of his revolutionary work, but it was here in his house, in 1726, that he related for the first time that what had inspired his theories of gravity was seeing that apple. It’s regrettable that Newton’s actual house was demolished as recently as the late 19th century, but you can see where it stood and where that most famous story was born, or at least encapsulated for the first time.

Royal associations

If you’re wondering what happened to the court, fashions changed and it eventually left Kensington Palace and moved back into a more central location. However, the association with royalty continued. For example, the palace was the birthplace of Queen Victoria and it’s where she received news of her accession to the throne.

As you can see, a lot of history can be found very close to almost any Kensington hotel.