November 22 - Meet Francis Willughby

Posted on November 22, 2020

Key points

Born in England on this date in 1635, Francis Willughby is billed as an ornithologist (a biologist who specializes in the study of birds), an ichthyologist (a biologist who specializes in the study of fish), and “an early student of linguistics and games.”

That last bit – “an early student of games” – surprised me and made me curious about this 17th-Century scientist.

Willughby went to Cambridge and was tutored by mathematician and naturalist John Ray – and Ray turned out to be a friend and coworker for the rest of his life.

Willughby and Ray were awesome in that they studied life science by observing and classifying creatures rather than by merely studying and regurgitating early attempts at describing the natural world – like Aristotle’s work in the 300s BCE. Not only did Willughby and Ray collect specimens, and museums and libraries and private collections, and study living plants and animals everywhere they went, Willughby and Ray encouraged other scientists to rely less on “authority” and more on observation and evidence. Which is super rad!

Ray refused to sign the Act of Uniformity, in 1662, which was a law passed by Parliament that detailed the way to pray and celebrate the rites of the Church of England. Because of this refusal, Ray lost his job. Willughby rescued him by allowing Ray to live with his family and by paying him to teach his sons.

Willughby died way too early (at age 36, of pleurisy), but he had already married and had three children, AND he had been a Fellow of the Royal Society for almost a decade by then.

Okay, what about those games?

Willughby and Ray wrote books on birds, fish, and “insects” – although the word “insect” then included lots of other creepy-crawlies that we no longer classify as insects: worms, spiders, millipedes, for example. Most of the books were finished and published by Ray, after Willughby’s untimely death.

Willughby’s Book of Games was written by Willughby alone – but it was unfinished at his death. This book was published for the first time in – get this! – 2003!

Willughby described dozens of games and sports, including lists of rules and equipment for each entry. Check out the variety of games he covered:

Card games

Board games, including children’s board games

Word games

Football

Cockfighting (which is now illegal in many places in the world)

Informal games that babies play, and that parents play with babies!

A mathematical section describing the bounce of tennis balls (!)

Some games Willughby wrote about were unknown, other than the fact that some character in English literature would mention the game by name – and when people discovered Willughby’s unfinished manuscripts, voila! We suddenly now know exactly how games like “Lend Me Your Skimmer” are played! LOL