Marriage to Smith
Three years later Hannah Ayscough, nearing 30, remarried, to clergyman and recent widower Barnabas Smith (1582–1653), a rich man of 63. Smith had attended Lincoln College, Oxford, though seems to have had no love of learning or study. The couple drew up a business contract before their marriage. The couple moved to Smith's long-standing home at North Witham, a mile and a half away. They left Isaac in the care of Hannah's mother, a loss that is described as "traumatic" for the young child. Biographer Michael White suggests that this move strikes us as heartless for Hannah to leave her child, however he comments that she may have viewed Smith as old and not likely to live long. As Smith had no children from his previous marriage, she may have imagined she would inherit all his wealth on his death and would be able to bequeath this to Isaac. On her death, she did indeed leave her entire, considerable estate, including Woolsthorpe Manor, to Isaac. Whether the separation of Hannah from her child was her idea or not, the loss of his mother from three years old, and the death of his father before his birth, is taken by biographers to have played a major role in shaping the "personality that emerges from the wreckage". Isaac was raised almost entirely within the Ayscough family. He grew to resent his mother, hated his step-father Smith and had very difficult relationships with women. It seems that Isaac did not get on well with either of Hannah's parents. Isaac was left as a legal guardian of one James Ayscough. It is not clear which family member this is, but it is likely to be Hannah's brother rather than her elderly father.
Barnabas and Hannah together had three of their own children, Mary (b.1647), Benjamin (b.1651) and Hannah (b.1652). After Smith's death at aged 71, in 1653, Hannah moved back with her three new children to Isaac and Woolsthorpe. Biographer White states that by this time "the rift between mother and son was too wide to ever heal properly".
In 1659 Hannah wanted to cease Isaac's education and she tried to make him into a farmer. Early biographer and family friend William Stukeley wrote "she thought fit to recall her son Isaac Newton from school, intending to make him serviceable to her, in management of farming & country business... but these employments ill suited Sr. Isaac's taste [sic]." Isaac's schoolmaster implored Hannah to let her son continue his education: "he never ceasd remonstrating to his mother what a loss it was to mankind, as well as a vain attempt, to bury so uncommon a talent, in admitted in 1660 rustic business. He was sufficiently satisfy'd that [Isaac] would become a very extraordinary man. At length, he prevailed with his mother to send him back to school". Isaac's uncle also supported his educational enthusiasm. Isaac attended Trinity College, Cambridge in 1661, graduating in 1665. He would stay there as a member for the next 42 years. Hannah was criticised for sending him there as a 'sizar', working in service to other students, even though she was a rich widow; however, she may well not have known the working of the college, and followed the manner of appointment her brother had experienced at Cambridge. The university temporarily closed during the years of the Great Plague and Isaac made visits back to Woolsthorpe and his mother between 1665 and 1667. Freed from the rigours of university life, he described his time there during this period as the most intellectually fruitful of his life - "a year of wonders", exploring and developing the science of optics, calculus, optics, the laws of motion and gravity. Hannah appointed Isaac legal head of her second family (Smith), though he rarely visited the family manor.
