Steve began his talk by informing the meeting that, when Sir Isaac Newton stated that he ‘stood on the shoulders of giants’ on the publication of his discoveries, one of the ‘giants’ to whom he referred was John Webster, whose Metallographia had been published in 1671.

Born near York in 1610, Webster lived through a turbulent age of superstition, reformation, civil war, family friction and fraction: ‘A World Turned Upside Down’. He was a polymath, who was opiniated and very forceful in putting forward his views – ‘a bruiser’. In 1633 he was appointed by the bishop as the ‘perpetual’ curate of Kildwick, near Skipton but, in 1636 was fired because of his recalcitrance, going against the current doctrine by denying witchcraft, siding with Roger Brearley, leader of the local ‘Grindletonian’ (Puritan) sect and publicly disagreeing with William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, when the latter espoused Catholicism.

Lord Assheton MP then appointed Webster to the post of Headmaster of Clitheroe Grammar School in 1637. As Headmaster, Webster had properties in the school grounds, including a study where he could practise his alchemy and metallurgy. He also accumulated one of the largest private libraries in the country. At this time Lancashire was considered ‘remote and backward’, deeply divided between Catholics and Puritans; town and country. During the Civil War, Webster left his teaching post and became a surgeon and army chaplain in the Parliamentary forces. He returned to the church as a vicar of Mitton in 1648.

Webster was in London in the early 1650s, writing and preaching. In 1654, he published The Academiarum Examen which made detailed proposals for the reform of the university curriculum. Webster wanted to combine ideas from the experimental philosophy of the time with those of astrology and alchemy. By 1658, back in Clitheroe he was arrested and had his papers seized for not following the establishment line. In 1677, he wrote ‘The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft’, a pamphlet that disputed the depiction of witchcraft in Demonologie written by King James I – another brave, anti-establishment stance!

Webster died in Clitheroe in 1682. He was buried in the parish churchyard, where his grave is marked by a plaque designed and written by the man himself.