Newton was born on 4 January 1643 in the village of Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire in England. He belonged to a prosperous family engaged in farming for generations.
There was no tradition of giving formal education in his family. Though Newton’s relatives on his mother’s side were educated, both his father and grandfather were illiterate. His father, also named Isaac Newton, passed away three months before his son was born.
Since he was born premature, the doctor who attended his birth was not sure the child would survive. Though they were an affluent family who lived in the comforts of a country house, Newton’s mother must have found it difficult to raise a sickly child by herself.
Within two years, his mother Hannah Ayscough remarried a well-to-do minister named Barnabas Smith and moved to another village. Young Isaac was left behind to the care of his grandmother. The mother and son reunited after the death of Smith when Newton was 12 years old. Newton had three step-siblings (Mary, Benjamin and Hannah) from his mother’s second marriage.
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