Gunpowder presented a dangerous yet fascinating subject for members of the Hartlib circle and Royal Society in the mid-late seventeenth century. Prominent figures such as Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke conducted experiments with gunpowder and its constituents (saltpetre in particular) with diverse means and ends. These experiments aimed not only to test and improve the quality of gunpowder (satisfying the utilitarian requirements of Baconian science), but also to demonstrate how gunpowder and saltpetre could be used to explicate causes in natural philosophy, medicine and meteorology. To use Francis Bacon’s term, gunpowder was a ‘polychrest’ substance, providing both experiments of fruit (utilitarian benefits) and experiments of light (illumination of causes). Thus, gunpowder played a key role in the formative period of the Royal Society’s promotion of experimental inquiry.

As part of an AHRC collaborative PhD project between the University of York and the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, we will be replicating a selection of these experiments. These include Robert Boyle’s ‘Redintegration’ of nitre (1661), in which experiments with saltpetre were used to demonstrate his corpuscular theory of matter; Robert Hooke’s ‘Gunpowder Trier’ (1663), which was intended to provide a new means of determining the force of gunpowder; and experiments to analyse gun recoil in relation to the quantity and quality of gunpowder, as originally conducted by Lord Viscount Brouncker and published in Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal Society (1667). Using historical replication, we aim to investigate the fusions of experimental, rational and technical practices associated with gunpowder and its ancillary skills, using contemporary images, artefacts and descriptions as a guide. Through replicating these historical experiments, we gain a unique insight into the nature of gunpowder and, more broadly, the nature of experimental science in the early modern period. However, there are significant challenges, both intellectual and practical, associated with this.