An innumerate President of the Royal Society?

Abstract

Dale Spender is author of more than 20 feminist books. A recent one is a fictitious diary of Elizabeth Pepys, wife of Samuel Pepys (F.R.S. 1665, P.R.S. 1684-86). There are clues aplenty that it is a hoax, but one fears that many feminist enthusiasts will suppose the diary authentic; and, indeed, there is evidence that professional librarians are being deceived. The picture of Pepys which emerges has no redeeming features: he is jealous and evil-tempered; in money matters he is miserly to his wife, but spendthrift on himself; he chases after whores and practices rape in marriage, bestowing on his young wife at least the symptoms of syphilis; he is shy of soap and water, and disgusting in his toilet habits; he is a glutton and comes home nightly vomiting drunk. A comprehensive demonstration that the ‘diary’ is a wicked calumny on a President of the Royal Society would not be difficult; but here we pursue just one matter, the question of Pepys’s mathematical (indeed arithmetic) competence.