ABSTRACT
As if to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Gresham College, an anonymous tract, Gresham's Ghost, was published in London in May 1647. And yet, as its ominous title makes clear, this was to be no congratulatory volume.The author, styling himself'Vitruvius', found nothing to commend in the institution, its trustees or its professors. With Shakespearean theatricality - though without any hint of the bard's poetic skills - he conjured up Sir Thomas's ghost to take up the 'Complaint of Seamen and other Artists' who had been wronged by the professors' disinclination to teach out of term, as well as by their failure to cater for the true needs of Londoners.1 At about the same time, a member of the Hartlib circle (perhaps William Petty) drafted a memorandum which, while equally harsh in its appraisal of Gresham College, nevertheless put forward concrete suggestions concerning its reformation, the most telling of which was the proposal that the professorships of law and theology be abolished and new ones devoted to experiments and natural philosophy be established in their stead.2
