PLAQUES

ROBERT BOYLE

HIGH STREET, YETMINSTER

This plaque is on an attractive stone building Boyles School, a school in the village which was set up for poor boys and endowed by Dorset scientist Robert Boyle. The school opened in 1711. It remained in operation until the mid twentieth century, when it was closed under the provisions of the 1944 Education Act.

Robert Boyle foresaw advances that would give rise to aeroplanes, organ transplants, genetic modification, electric lights and more – back in the 1660s. He was born in Ireland but grew up at his family estate in Stalbridge, just north of Sturminster Newton.

Boyle conducted many experiments at his Dorset home and discovered Boyle’s Law, the formula that governs the relationship between gas volume and pressure. He never married and left his estate to his eldest brother. He died in London in 1691, aged 64, and is buried in St Martin’s in the Field.