Gold for secrets: the Hartlib Circle and the early English empire, 1630-1660

Thesis

In this thesis I place the intellectual and practical work of Samuel Hartlib and his associates in its appropriate imperial and global settings, notably in the Atlantic World of mid-seventeenth-century English colonialism. I argue that the participation of the Hartlib Circle in the improvement programme that contributed to the construction of English colonies has been insufficiently recognised, either in scholarship on the Hartlibians or in the general literature on early modern English colonial expansion. This study addresses this issue through a detailed examination of private and official correspondence, chronicles, sermons, legislation, journals, and other texts that directly or indirectly related Hartlib and his allies to the Early English Empire. In order to properly address the full extent of the participation of Hartlib and his network in English imperialism, the thesis draws on approaches in the history of science and imperial history to examine four Atlantic English colonial regions during the period 1630-1660. As a result, this thesis reveals for the first time Hartlib’s extensive participation in efforts to use empirical practical methods to improve Ireland, New England, Virginia, and the West Indies from the reign of Charles I, through the civil wars, Commonwealth and Protectorate, and to the Restoration.

Authors: Miller, TE

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-vjv6qzpkg
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Imperialism; Ulster; colonies; Native American; Millennial; Ireland; Early English Empire; colonization; Arnold Boate; New World; Robert Boyle; Hartlib Circle; Huguenot; Virginia Ferrar; Robert Child; Bermuda; John Cotton; Hugh L'Amy; John Winthrop; William Berkeley; Boston; New England; John Rulice; William Petty; silk; Colonies; Benjamin Worsley; Virginia; Katherine Jones; Richard Ligon; George Starkey; Science and Religion; America; Jamestown; Seventeenth Century; History of Science; Plantation; Natural History; Gerard Boate; West Indies; John Dury; survey; Harvard; sugar; Yale; Providence; Henry Vane; Cressy Dymock; Samuel Hartlib; Puritan; Barbados; Jamaica; John Davenport; tobacco; Peter Le Pruvost
• Subjects: Imperialism; Seventeenth Century; Plantation; Early English Empire; Colonization; The Hartlib Circle; History of Science