Born: 25 Jan 1627 in Lismore, co Waterford, Ireland
Father: Sir Richard Boyle 1st Earl of Cork, 1st Viscount Dungarvan, 1st Baron Boyle of Youghal, Lord High Treasurer of the Kingdom of Ireland
Mother: Catherine Fenton (only daughter of Alice Weston and Sir Geoffrey Fenton)
Died: 31 Dec 1691 in London, England
Buried: 7 Jan 1692 in the chancel of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, England
The castle at Lismore was erected in 1158 by Prince John, later king of England. It was the home of the Bishops of Lismore until 1581 when it was granted to Sir Walter Raleigh. The castle passed to Richard Boyle (1st Earl of Cork) in 1602 and Robert Boyle was born there in 1627. In 1753 the castle passed to the 4th Duke of Devonshire and has remained in that family to this day.
Robert entered Eton College with his brother Francis on 2 Oct 1635 and left on 23 Nov 1638. In 1639 he travelled to France and Switzerland with Francis and returned to England in 1644. He settled in Stalbridge, Dorset where he spent most of his time for the next decade. In 1656 he lived in Oxford and collaborated with Robert Hooke. Robert Boyle was famous for his work on the properties of gases. Boyle's law, also called Mariottes's Law (after Edme Mariotte, a French physicist, who also discovered the same law), states that the pressure (p) of a given quantity of gas varies inversely to its volume (v) at constant temperature; ie, pv = k. In 1668 he settled in Pall Mall, London with Lady Ranelagh.
Robert was the founding member of the Royal Society of London.