Robert Hooke, employed at Christ Church College, Oxford, as a "chemical assistant" to Dr Thomas Willis, for whom Hooke had developed a great admiration, here met the natural philosopher Robert Boyle, and gained employment as his assistant from about 1655 to 1662, constructing, operating, and demonstrating Boyle's "machina Boyleana" or air pump.

He did not take his Master of Arts until 1662 or 1663.

Hooke had in 1659 described some elements of a method of heavier-than-air flight to Wilkins, but concluded that human muscles were insufficient to the task.

Hooke became Curator of Experiments in 1662 to the newly founded Royal Society, and took responsibility for experiments performed at its weekly meetings.

He will hold this position for over forty years.

Hooke is known for his law of elasticity (Hooke's Law), his work as "the father of microscopy", and for coining the term "cell" to describe the basic unit of life.

The descriptive term for the smallest living biological structure is coined by Hooke in a book he publishes in 1665 when he compares the cork cells he sees through his microscope to the small rooms in which monks live.

The word cell comes from the Latin cellula, meaning 'a small room'.