ABSTRACT
In the library of Westminster School is a first edition of the History of the Royal Society.1 The copy epitomizes the vitality and the central position of the institution that was Westminster in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The author was the Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Rochester, Thomas Sprat; he was also ex officio the chairman of the Governing Body of the School. The book had been a gift of William Lord Brereton to his friend, the mathematician John Pell, who is the author of the marginal corrections. John Pell in turn left the book and a large part of his library to his close friend Richard Busby, the Head Master of Westminster School (and a Prebendary of the Abbey after the Restoration), of whom he was a constant visitor and regular correspondent. On p. 232 is An Account of a Dog dissected by the Old Westminster, Robert Hooke, whose circle of friends and colleagues encompassed Pell and Busby and a large part of educated London society. The only one of those named above who was not a Fellow of the Royal Society, Richard Busby, was to play a very significant rôle in education in the second half of the seventeenth century.
