Arthur Storer
Arthur Storer was a pioneering astronomer in colonial British America, remembered today chiefly for his association and correspondence with Isaac Newton. Storer was born in Lincolnshire, England, and eventually emigrated as an adult to Calvert County, in the Province of Maryland. He carried out careful astronomical observations using self-made instruments, and has been described as "the first astronomer in the American colonies" and as "Maryland's first scientist". His most notable observations were those of the Great Comet of 1680 and of the Comet of 1682. Storer shared his observations with Newton, who used them in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica of 1687.
Storer's maternal uncle was the Rev. Humphrey Babington, who was the Anglican rector of Boothby Pagnell in Lincolnshire and a senior fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Storer's stepfather was William Clarke, who was the apothecary of Grantham and who provided lodgings to the adolescent Isaac Newton during his time as a student at The King's School, Grantham. Some sources indicate that Arthur Storer was also an apothecary, but no direct evidence of this has survived. The planetarium of Calvert High School, in Prince Frederick, Maryland, is named after Arthur Storer.
Connection to Isaac Newton
Arthur Storer was the son of Katherine née Babington, sister of the Rev. Humphrey Babington, who was rector of Boothby Pagnell, as well as senior fellow, bursar, and vice-master of Trinity College, in the University of Cambridge. After Katherine was widowed, she married William Clarke, an apothecary resident in Grantham, on the High Street next to the George Inn. Katherine brought to Clarke's household four children from her first marriage: Edward, Arthur, Katherine, and Ann.At the age of 12, Isaac Newton was sent away from his home in Woolsthorpe to attend the The King's School, Grantham. While there, he resided in the Clarke household, where he formed a connection with the Rev. Babington, who may later have encouraged Newton to attend Trinity College. Newton privately recorded, among the list of sins in his 1662 Fitzwilliam notebook, the act of "beating Arthur Storer". Many years later, Arthur's sister Katherine Storer claimed that the adolescent Newton shown a romantic interest in her. Storer maintained a correspondence with both the Rev. Babington and Isaac Newton even after he emigrated to the Province of Maryland at some point on or before 1672. Newton's Principia, first published in 1687, refers twice to the observations that Storer made of the Great Comet of 1680.