The family were reunited in 1653, when Smith died and Newton's mother returned to Woolsthorpe with his half-brother and two half-sisters. The unpleasant aspects of Newton's mature personality may have had their roots in this traumatic period. The animosity was shared grandfather Ayscough pointedly omitted him from his will. He recorded no affectionate recollection of his grandmother, and made no mention whatever of his grandfather. There is some evidence that Newton, who never mentioned his stepfather, hated him, and he probably did not care for his grandparents either. Smith was wealthy, with an estate worth £500 per annum in addition to the rectory. The next recorded event in his life was more than three years later, when his mother married the Revd Barnabas Smith, left her first-born son with her parents in Woolsthorpe, and went off to the rectory of North Witham, 1½ miles south of Woolsthorpe, to rear a second family. He was not expected to survive but his mother delayed his baptism until 1 January 1643. Isaac Newton was born on Christmas day, a tiny baby. Although it is impossible to assess accurately, an annual value of £150 appears to be a reasonable estimate of the estate. In addition to extensive lands, there were goods and chattels valued at £459, including a flock of 235 sheep and 46 head of cattle, possessions in excess of the average at that time. For a yeoman, he also left a considerable estate, which would bear upon the prospects of his unborn son. As soon as the estate was settled Newton's parents married, in April 1642, but six months later, early in October, his father died, leaving a pregnant widow. His mother, Hannah, brought a property worth £50 per annum to the marriage-her brother William occupied the rectory of Burton Coggles, 2 miles east of Woolsthorpe. One of his ancestors had purchased a farm in Woolsthorpe for a son, Richard the manor of Woolsthorpe was added in 1623, and the combined estate was inherited by Newton's father in 1641. They were also prolific, so that the area south of Grantham came to be sprinkled with numerous thriving Newton families, descended from Simon Newton of Westby. Thus the son of John Newton of Westby styled himself yeoman in his will of 1562, a step above husbandman, and successive wills indicate that the family flourished until its members could be counted among the most prosperous farmers in the district. The family clearly had industry and ability, each generation inching up the local hierarchy. His family could trace its roots to John Newton of Westby, a village near Grantham John Newton's grandfather Simon Newton was a husbandman whose name appeared among taxpayers listed in Westby in 1524. Newton, Sir Isaac ( 1642–1727), natural philosopher and mathematician, was born on 25 December 1642 in the manor house of Woolsthorpe, near Colsterworth, about 7 miles south of Grantham, Lincolnshire, the only and posthumous son of Isaac Newton (1606–1642), yeoman farmer, and his wife, Hannah ( c.1610–1679), daughter of James Ayscough, gentleman, of Market Overton, Rutland.
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