Henry Oldenburg

Henry Oldenburg (Heinrich Oldenburg, Bremen, c. 1618 or 1619 – London, 5 September 1677) was a German theologian and diplomat who became one of the central figures of intellectual life in 17th-century Europe. He is remembered above all as the first Secretary of the Royal Society in London and as the driving force behind a wide network of scientific correspondence that spanned much of the Continent.

Trained in theology in his native city, he spent much of the 1640s in England, probably as a tutor, and then travelled through the Dutch Republic. In 1653 he returned to London as an envoy of the Bremen senate to Cromwell, and he stayed. He formed close ties with Robert Boyle, with Milton and with the circle of Samuel Hartlib, whose network of correspondents he later took over. After the Restoration he became an original fellow of the Royal Society, founded in 1660, and from his post as secretary he built a system of letters with scholars across Europe.

His most lasting contribution was editorial. As founding editor of the Philosophical Transactions he began sending submitted manuscripts to experts for assessment before publication, an early form of peer review and the beginning of the modern scientific journal. He left no systematic philosophical work of his own; his value lies in circulating the ideas of others and in shaping how knowledge was exchanged. He was briefly held in the Tower of London in 1667 as a suspected spy during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.