Catherine Barton

Catherine Barton (* 1679, † 1739 ) was Isaac Newton's half- niece ( the daughter of his half-sister ), which he adopted later as a daughter. She made the last years of his life for him and managed after his death, Newton's estate.

One of the stories that Newton had developed his law of gravity after an apple he had fallen at the feet in the garden of Woolsthorpe Manor, goes back to Barton, she told Voltaire, which they in turn spread publicity. According to Voltaire, who was a friend of Barton, the charm of his niece in the former air of London was more important for Newton's appointment as head of the Royal Mint as his scientific discoveries.

Newton's papers about his heretical views on Christianity and his alchemical researches she kept under lock and key, so that they became publicly known only 130 years after Newton's death. To light they came in 1936 when Lord Lymington, Earl of Portsmouth, a direct descendant of Barton, she let auctioned at Sotheby's. The document was received with great skepticism, both because of their ethnicity and because of its unusual content, but proved to be genuine. John Maynard Keynes is to acquire most of them succeeded.

The Barton described by contemporaries as an attractive and charming woman was admired among others, by Jonathan Swift. Swift devoted herself poems, the theme was taken up again by the poet Alfred Noyes in the 20th century:

" Was it a dream, did low dim - lighted room With that dark periwigged phantom of Dean Swift Writing, beside a fire, to one he loved, - Beautiful Catherine Barton, once the light Of Newton 's house, and his half- sister 's child? Yes, Catherine Barton, I am brave enough To face this pale, unhappy, wistful ghost Of our departed friendship. "

Barton had a relationship with Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, after the death of his wife in 1698. Leaving behind her the then enormous sum of £ 5,000 in cash and £ 20,000 in land ownership for the pleasure and happiness I have had in her conversation.

From 1707 Newton House was led by Barton. Barton married in 1717 Newton students Conduitt John, his successor as head of the Royal Mint.

Catherine Barton in the novel

Barton is a character in Neal Stephenson's System of the World, the third volume of the Baroque trilogy.

A fictitious C. Barton plays an important role in the novel " Newton's shadow " ( Reinbek 2003, engl. "Dark Matter ", 2002) by British author Philip Kerr.