Robert Boyle Robert Boyle is considered both the founder of modern chemistry and the greatest English scientist to live during the first thirty years of the existence of the Royal Society. He was not only a chemist and a physicist as we know him to be, but also an avid theologian, a philanthropist, an essayist, and a beginner in medicine. Born in Lismore, Ireland to Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork, and Katherine Fenton, his second wife, Boyle was the youngest son in a family of fourteen. However he was not shortchanged of anything. After private tutoring at home for eight years, Robert Boyle was sent to Eton College where he studied for four years. At the age of twelve, Boyle traveled to t