On the Christmas of 1642, Isaac Newton was born to Hannah Ayscough and Isaac Newton Senior, in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire. Isaac's father had died three months prior to his birth, however, and Hannah Ayscough was left a widow until she remarried Reverend Barnabas Smith when Isaac was three-years old. Under the instruction of Hannah's new husband, young Isaac was left in the care of his maternal grandmother until he was twelve years of age, at which time he began attending The King's School in Grantham after he was reunited with his mother after the death of his step-father.
Despite the fact that Newton excelled in The King's School in Grantham and achieved top ranks, his mother pulled him out of school in 1659, at the age of 16, to become a farmer, as his father had been. However, due partly to persuasiveness of Newton's uncle and primary school headmaster, who had recognized his intellectual potential, and largely to his inadequacy as a farmer, Newton soon abandoned farm work and enrolled himself as a sizar(an undergraduate who receives maintenance aid from the college) at the University of Cambridge's Trinity College. It was here that he developed his interest in physics, mathematics, optics and astronomy.
Trinity Hall
Earliest known drawing of The King's School in Grantham, 1806
Being a strict protestant, Newton found social life very difficult at College, as he firmly disagreed with most of the other students' customs of gambling and drinking. However, as time past and he became close friends with his room-mate, he grew more relaxed in this belief and would sometimes allow himself a game of cards or a small beer. However, despite his protestant upbringings, it is believed that Newton leaned more towards being a Unitarian at the end of his life.
Newton was awarded Bachelor of Arts just before he returned to his home in Woolsthorpe in 1665 after a plague epidemic forced a two year closure of the college. Despite what would seem to be an inconvenience to his education, it was during these two years that Newton began to develop theories regarding mathematics, physics and optics.