Talk:Christopher Wren/Archive 2

Removal of opening sentence in the section 'Death'
I'm going to remove this sentence "Contrary to popular belief,[citation needed] Wren did not die at his son’s house." as I can not find this said anywhere else. Thanks, GoldRock 23 (talk - my page - contribs)  14:45, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

GA Nomination Outcome (Please read to help improve this article)
""

Questions Before GA Review
I am an admirer of Wren's work, and have visited many buildings of his design, so I think it would be nice to review this article. However, I do have some important questions for the article's main contributors:
 * Do the main contributors agree that this article is ready for GA review? I ask because the nominator is not a major contributor and I don't want to write a full review for a "drive-by" nomination.
 * Are the main contributors ready to fix and expand this article as necessary within a 7 day window (I'm flexible)? As it stands right now, this article would not pass GA review. Eighteen references is pretty light for a historical figure of Wren's stature, and given the large amount of information in this article without citations, that alone would prompt me to fail the GAN if I just judged it on the spot. The reference section is...interesting. It needs some TLC to conform to MOS. Images should be placed in the article in appropriate places to illustrate it - the gallery section is an eyesore (painful for me to write, given the beauty of the buildings themselves). These are just the things that were red flags upon first glance, which doesn't bode well for a GAN.

If the answer is no to either or both of these questions, then I suggest withdrawing the GAN until a peer-review and copy-edit can be done. What say ye editors? AstroCog (talk) 02:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I nominated this article to see what improvements this article needs. I assure you it is not a "drive-by" nomination and that I am ready to listen to your suggestions so I can do what I can to improve this article. I have a great interest in the Renaissance period in history, and being a newly joined editor, I wanted to see how I could help. However, I do need to consult the article's main contributor(s) (I will leave a note on their talk page(s)), and to have the time to make the appropriate changes, and so I request that you place this article on hold for an indefinite period of time (a month maximum) until the necessary changes have been made to improve this article. I am prepared to expand this article until it meet GAN requirements. I am grateful for your time, and would like to ask you whether you could help to detail more of the problems that this article has as I start to fix them. I will reply when I receive answers from the main contributor(s) on whether they are prepared to help. Thanks, GoldRock 23 (talk - my page - contribs)  12:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds like what you want is a peer review. A good article reviewer is just a volunteer who leaves some feedback on an article's quality as it pertains to the good article criteria. Reviewers are not expected to actively take part in the improvement of GANs which are well-below the threshold. Some reviewers may...I'm not one of them, though. Holding an article for a month is not typical. A week is standard, and that's for articles which just need some minor improvements or straightforward revisions to meet the GA criteria. Frankly, I think it's going to take some substantial research to improve this article, to meet #s 1, 2 and 3 in the criteria. Because you're new and eager, I think this could be good practice for you. I'm willing to be a bit flexible here, but I don't want to do a full peer review or copy edit at the moment. Let's see what the other contributors say, as well. AstroCog (talk) 13:13, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Personally I think that the section on Wren's architectural career has major omissions, he designed over fifty parish churches, mainly in the City of London but a couple in Westminster as well, and nothing is said of his "Tracts" on Architecture, though only published decades after his death they are worth mentioning, other architectural designs that are over looked are his design of the new palace at Winchester, though this was abandoned half built due to the death of Charles II, later becoming barracks and burning down in Victoria's reign, also he executed a few domestic commissions, Marlborough House in London and Winslow Hall Buckinghamshire are the main survivors. More needs to be said about his chief architectural pupil and right hand man Nicholas Hawksmoor, he was also influential in the architectural careers of Sir John Vanbrugh and James Gibbs. unsigned comment by Architon


 * Well, this is not an answer to the questions I am asking. I want to know if editors are ready to make suggested changes in a timely manner once I do a GA review. Please sign your comments with four tildes. AstroCog (talk) 12:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I have asked the creator and one of the main editors but they are not responding. I'll try asking more of the editors and see if that works and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks for your patience, GoldRock 23 (talk - my page - contribs)  15:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * That's ok, if you're the most interested editor in the article, that won't stop a GA review. I'll get my review up in the next few days and then you can decide how to address it. AstroCog (talk) 16:28, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems like the main contributors contributed years ago! If I don't post here saying they've replied by Friday, I would be happy for you to start the review. I am, I think, currently the only editor who seems to be interested in the article at the moment excepting Architon, who posted here earlier and is a main contributor to the article. I'm still waiting for his reply, though. Thanks, GoldRock 23 (talk - my page - contribs)  17:30, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned with this article as sections of it seem to be a barely re-written version of that which appears in the Dictionary of National Biography (see DNB entry here, although you'll need a subscription). The real kicker is that the DNB isn't cited once! I'm not blaming the more recent editors as I think they been updating etc the version that has been on for a while. A few select comparisons appear below, (none of which have been cited) but there are a lot of others which I could have included.

I'd be very careful with this article: it needs a complete overhaul to avoid justifiable accusations of plagiarism before it should be considered to be of any standard at all. - SchroCat ( ^  •  @ ) 15:23, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I'll try to alter those problems as soon as I get to the weekend and thanks for informing me. Thanks, GoldRock 23 (talk - my page - contribs)  15:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The problem is that it's much, much more than these ones: if pushed I'd guess that about 30 - 40% of the article is far too close to the DNB copy to avoid any suspicion of plagiarism. - SchroCat ( ^  •  @ ) 16:56, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hmm, this is a problematic development, and I'm glad someone has pointed it out. This underscores for me my original feeling that this article is going to need a substantial amount of work. More than can just be addressed by a GA review. This article needs a complete peer review. Editors, there is no hurry for GA status. Will you object to me doing a quick fail on this nom? Alternatively, the nomination can be withdrawn. It won't reflect poorly on the article or on the nominator, GoldRock23. I just think is going to require more than the standard 7 days of fixes...and more than just suggestions from a GA review. Here are my recommendations:

Let me know what you think.AstroCog (talk) 02:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Take out all copyvios or "close paraphrasing" sentences and replace them with original writing.
 * 2) Make sure that all claims, facts, and statements about Wren's life are suitably referenced.
 * 3) Clean up the images, including that hideous gallery at the bottom.
 * 4) It would be worthwhile to study a model FA article, such as Samuel Johnson, another larger-than-life Englishman of the era.
 * 5) Get a peer review of this article, especially from somebody who has experience with one of the most relevant WikiProjects to the subject, such as Oxford or History of Science.

""

Thanks, GoldRock 23 (talk - my page - contribs)  16:18, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

References Required tag
I have removed the References Required tag from the section on Freemasonry, which contains in its text (not as footnotes) references to the four principle sources on which I based it - primarily the published text of the Prestonian lecture 2011, but also Anderson's Constitutions, the portrait in Lodge Room 10, and the plaque on the maul in the Grand Museum. These four sources are all on public display as matters of record, so what further references could you want, please?

I too went to Westminster School and Wadham College, Oxford as a maths scholar, (sadly our careers thereafter diverged....) so I have taken some interest in the man, and even visited the Lodge of Antiquity. Jezza (talk) 03:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

"Bishoprick" was standard spelling
In Wren's obituary in the "Death" section, in the words "in the Bishoprick (sic) of Durham", I am removing "(sic)" because "bishoprick" was standard spelling in that era. (See, for example, Acts 1:20 in the King James Version of the Bible, and other instances as late as 1856.) Wideangle (talk) 19:04, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've reverted. You're quite right in saying it was the standard spelling then, but the [sic] ensures people do not alter based on the standard spelling now. - SchroCat (talk) 13:04, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Discrepancy in Life story
Hi there I am a complete noob, so I am not sure if this is the right place to put this, however I have noticed a discrepancy in this story. When talking about Wren's second wife Jane Fitzwilliam (section 1665-1723), the paragraph concludes with "Wren was never to marry again; he lived to be over 90 years old and of those years was married only nine." yet the section concludes with " He was married to 3 different women but only had children with 2 of them." I am sure there are more engaged Wren-ites who can clarify SheilaSm (talk) 18:49, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Contribution to the inverse-square law of gravity
He seem to have contributed on stating the necessity of an inverse square law for gravity. This aspects should be underlined.--188.26.22.131 (talk) 10:41, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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Age at death discrepancy
In the body of the article, and in the info box, it says that Wren was 90 years old at the time of his death. However the inscription by his son in St. Paul's Cathedral says he was 91. His date of death is shown as 25 February 1723. England was still on the Julian calendar at the time so October 1723 came BEFORE February 1723, and the new year (1724) would have started about 25 March, so he in fact would have been 91 at the time of his death, the same as the inscription. The body of the article and info box should be corrected. I don't want to take a chance on messing things up so I will leave it to more experienced members to do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.217.56.249 (talk) 06:30, 5 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Julian_calendar says: "From 1087 to 1155 the English year began on 1 January, and from 1155 to 1751 on 25 March.[62] In 1752 it was moved back to 1 January."


 * See also Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.


 * Wren's dates of birth and death are given in this article as "20 October 1632" and "25 February 1723". We make the assumption that both of these dates are according to the then-prevalent scheme of a year beginning on 25 March (it really matters only for the death date, because a date in October would be in the same year regardless of whether a year is deemed to begin on 25 March or on 1 January).


 * Wren's 91st birthday was on 20 October 1723. Four months later (think:  November, December, January, February), was still in the year 1723 because New Year's Day would not arrive until 25 March.  Therefore, when 25 February 1723 (his death date) came, that was four months after his 91st birthday.  The inscription on the plaque in St. Paul's Cathedral is correct.


 * Therefore, the entries that say he was 90 at death should be changed to say 91. The facility in Infobox that automatically calculates his death-age based on "{ {death date and age|1723|2|25|1632|10|20|df=y}}" gives the incorrect result of 90 and so must be replaced by literal text conveying the correct information.  A caveat in Template:Infobox_scientist says:  "(but do not use these if the date is before 1583)" which obviously is an inadequate warning (the Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1583, but other year and location facts can complicate the calculation.  See the table in Gregorian_calendar).


 * Wideangle (talk) 23:12, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * On 13 September 2013, I replaced the facility in Infobox that automatically (and incorrectly) calculated his death-age based on "{ {death date and age|1723|2|25|1632|10|20|df=y}}" by literal text conveying the correct information. By so doing, the Age at Death Discrepancy is now fixed. Wideangle (talk) 17:43, 16 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Glad someone explained this. It fooled me! If I am recording a date from an old document I tend to write 25 February 1723/4. I'm surprised there isn't some sort of clarification here - for example a footnote. Sionk (talk) 21:40, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

NOTE: Somebody at address  86.183.13.39 in October of 2014 changed the age of Christopher Wren at his death back to 90 from the correct age of 91 claiming that the new year did not start on 25 March at the time of Wren's death. IT MOST SURELY DID NITWIT!!!! I brought this up a little over three years ago and added this item to the talk page. I will fix the body of the text... AGAIN. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:340A:E680:D2F:9968:9850:C86 (talk) 06:34, 20 October 2015 (UTC) Here we go again. Last year at this time on the anniversarry of Wren's birth, his age at the time of his death was list CORRECTLY as 91. A year later and somebody changed it back to 90 again! Editors, please fix it to 91... again, and then block any further changes to it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:340A:E680:74E1:6AC2:1DF4:6DAB (talk) 06:16, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

-- Well we can't have it all ways, because the article currently says he died "8 March 1723 [25 February OS]". But 8 Mar 1723 Gregorian was 25 Feb 1722 Julian. (The following year, 25 Feb 1723 Julian, ie 1723/4, was 7 (sic) March 1724 Gregorian) Before the internet era amateurized everything, it was the standard practice of historians, biographers, encyclopedias etc to standardize historical A.D. years on a Jan 1 rollover, unless the context indicated otherwise. So when you see 25 Feb 1723, they meant 1722/3. (Note this "historical year" is not the same as Gregorian - they didn't bother to add some number of days.)

According to the article, the obit was in the Post Boy, issue 5244. As it happens, issue 5241 is currently on eBay, with a photograph. The Post Boy came out 3 times a week, so this issue is one week earlier than the one with the obit. From the image, the printed date on issue 5241 is "From Thursday February 21 to Saturday February 23 1722". So we can take it that issue 5244 was dated one week later, "From Thursday February 28 to Saturday March 2 1722" - given in the article as 2 Mar 1723, i.e. adjusted in the normal way. And the date of death, "Monday last", was therefore 25 Feb 1722 Julian, i.e. 1722/3. FitzwilliamDarcy (talk) 05:38, 25 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Somebody has been changing it to "89 O.S., 90 N.S.". This is obviously wrong - he can't have been two different ages - so I changed it back to just 90. But as others have pointed out here, if the year began on 25 March, then 25 February 1723 O.S. would be 8 March 1724 N.S., making him 91. However, I'm not sure if the "1723" year has already been normalized to N.S., making him 90. Should I change it to 91? Akwdb (talk) 01:18, 28 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Re this edit
 * You are right to note there is an ambiguity here. Please see this note by User:Bennylin: "as there was confusion to what year it was for the months of January, February, and part of March of 1751, because new year used to be started at March 25th. To avoid confusion many colonial records used dates providing both the official and common year. A typical example is '5 Feb 1750/51'."
 * Britannica.com gives O.S. dates: "October 20, 1632 – February 25, 1723." User:FitzwilliamDarcy claims that 25 February 1723 O.S. should be interpreted as 1722/3 O.S. and that the printed date on the issue of the newspaper that published the obituary is "From Thursday February 21 to Saturday February 23 1722". However no link is provided to the scanned version of the said source (no scanned version is to be found here). According to FitzwilliamDarcy's claim, the vital dates are "October 20, 1632 – February 25, 1722 O.S.". The modern reproduction (1941) of the newspaper obituary (which may be mistaken/adulterated) says: "Post Boy, No. 5244. London. March 2 [1723]." Wren's date of death according to modern sources is dual. But it is indeed not clear whether the 1941 reproduction date (if accurate), i.e. "25 February 1723 O.S.", corresponds to 1723/4 O.S. (1723 O.S. from January 1 to 24 March) or 1722/3 O.S. (as FitzwilliamDarcy claims). --Omnipaedista (talk) 09:55, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * FitzwilliamDarcy is right. Date of death is 1722 in the pre-1752 calendar (sometimes given as a dual year: 1722/3, i.e., pre-1752 calendar normalized to N.S.). Source: Paul Welberry Kent, Allan Chapman, eds., Robert Hooke and the English Renaissance, Gracewing Publishing, 2005, p. 47. --Omnipaedista (talk) 12:51, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Wren died aged 90. It would have been 89 if "February 25, 1722" (the date given in the primary source: Post Boy obituary (1720s version)) were to be interpreted as 1721. But the primary source was published in the pre-1752 era. "February 25, 1722" literally means "February 25, 1722". The correct normalized dual year is "1722/3 O.S." Kent et al. (2005:47) confirms this. --Omnipaedista (talk) 13:13, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Date of birth
The obit says he was 90 when he died ("in his 91st year"). Since he died in Feb 1722/3, his 90th birthday was presumably celebrated in the previous October, i.e. Oct 1722, leading to a calculated DoB of 1632. This may be how the conventional DoB was arrived at, if nothing better was accessible.

However, the parish register would seem to indicate that Wren was born the previous year, 1631. This would mean that he was past 91 when he died (so "in his 92nd year") and the obit got it wrong.

But the evidence isn't entirely conclusive (and the register entries appear to be out of order). Certainly there isn't (yet) the secondary and tertiary support for the 1631 date that Wikipedia would want. FitzwilliamDarcy (talk) 08:12, 25 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Original manuscript source identified here
 * https://archive.org/stream/memoirsoflifewor00elmeuoft#page/n44/
 * But "cyclo solis, 17", "litera dominicalis B", and "3d post bissextum" all appear to describe 1631 not 1632? - FitzwilliamDarcy (talk) 11:31, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No ambiguity here. He was born in October 1632 according to James Elmes (1823). --Omnipaedista (talk) 13:58, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Images and gallery

 * Including major editors as well as editors to Balliol College, Oxford who have similarly expressed strong preferences regarding images relating to Wren’s work. User:Beyond My Ken seems to believe that a gallery of 57 images, many of which do not even depict Wren’s work, is appropriate for the ‘’’Gallery of architectural work’’’ section.

The gallery [as reverted] by BMK includes as many as 3 images of the same building as well as many undeniably low quality photos for which quality and even featured images exist. I am of the opinion that given WP:NOTGALLERY, a gallery should only include selected images of Wren’s most important and representative work. Further images or an exhaustive list are more appropriate for a List of works by Christopher Wren article and can be viewed by users who are so inclined, or on the pages that are devoted in their entirety to each of these structures. The included images should also note the dates of construction and be ordered chronologically, as I had so thoroughly done. I also (can’t believe I have to say this) believe that when available, images evaluated as quality and featured images should be used. Many of the images that BMK reverted back into the article are of abject technical quality.

I would lastly like to stress (again kind of at a loss here) that the content of galleries should accurately reflect their titles. Obviously, neither the Blue Plaque nor Bankside House are Wren’s works. BMKs reversion thus not only violates Wikipedia’s clear rules regarding WP:NOT, it is a sloppy umbrella reversion that returns misplaced content to the gallery. Thoughts? Filetime (talk) 20:09, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Entirely agree. Without getting into too much detailed discussion about individual images, 57 is way too many. Wikipedia is not an image repository. A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article... (WP:GALLERY). Weeding out repetitive views of the same building is an obvious start; as is removing photos of barely relevant plaques (not only a blue plaque, but also another with its "claims disproved"). In fact the current gallery of 27 seems a bit excessive: do we really need photos of the Wren Library and Hampton Court when they've already been illustrated in the body of the article? And how about moving a few of the others (e.g. at least two of the first three) into the body where these buildings are actually discussed? There might also be a case for dividing the gallery into two or three chronological or thematic sections. GrindtXX (talk) 20:59, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Once again, Filetime, it is not allowed to CANVASS only editors who you think will support you. Therefor, I am starting an RfC. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:56, 1 July 2021 (UTC)