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Henry Oldenburg (also Henry Oldenbourg) (c. 1618 as Heinrich Oldenburg – 5 September 1677)A. Rupert Hall, "Oldenburg, Henry", Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Encyclopedia.com. 8 Sep. 2021 was a Germans Theology, diplomat, and natural philosopher, known as one of the creators of Modern science peer review. He was one of the foremost of 17th-century Europe, with a network of correspondents to rival those of Fabri de Peiresc, Marin Mersenne, and Ismaël Boulliau. At the foundation of the Royal Society in London, he took on the task of foreign correspondence, as the first Secretary.
Settling then in England of the Interregnum, he forged a strong relationship with his lifelong patron Robert Boyle, and with John Milton, who wrote of him approvingly that he had "learnt to speak our language more accurately and fluently than any other foreigner I have ever known" ( Correspondence, 1.34). Oldenburg eventually became the tutor to Boyle's nephew, the politician Richard Jones, and travelled with him through France from 1657 to 1660. Here Oldenburg also added to his intellectual baggage the French language, the last European language in which he was completely conversant.Marie Boas Hall, ODNB
Oldenburg married his second wife, Dora Katherina Dury (1654–77), the daughter of Dorothy Durie and John Dury in London on 13 August 1668. Either through Milton, whom he had met earlier in his diplomatic mission, or through Lady Ranelagh, sister to Boyle and the mother of Richard Jones, Oldenburg gained entry to an important intellectual circle, including his fellow German native, Samuel Hartlib, whose extensive web of correspondents Oldenburg was to take over, John Dury who became his father-in-law, and others such as the economist William Petty., pp. 16–18 Among Oldenburg's correspondents at this time was Baruch Spinoza, whom he was introduced to on a trip to the Netherlands, and to whom he presented a volume of writings on scientific topics by Boyle.; Nadler actually does not mention Boyle. The role of Boyle's scientific studies in the ongoing dialogue between Oldenburg and Spinoza is better described by Richard Popkin, Spinoza, Oxford, 2004, pp. 45–47.
He was briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London as a suspected spy in 1667, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Oldenburg's correspondence was linked to support from the politician Sir Joseph Williamson; in part Oldenburg supplied Williamson with intelligence information.
Oldenburg enjoyed good health in his lifetime, but he fell seriously ill on 3 September 1677, and he died two days thereafter at his Pall Mall, London home. He was interred on 7 September at St Mary the Virgin, Bexley. His widow died ten days later.
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