information:filtering, structural:scholar_edition, stylistic:style_transfer
Personality, relationships, health and death

Although John Aubrey described Hooke as a person of "great virtue and goodness". much has been written about the unpleasant side of Hooke's personality. According to his first biographer Richard Waller, Hooke was "in person, but despicable", and "melancholy, mistrustful, and jealous". Waller's comments influenced other writers for more than 200 years such that many books and articles – especially biographies of Isaac Newton – portray Hooke as a disgruntled, selfish, anti-social curmudgeon. For example, Arthur Berry said Hooke "claimed credit for most of the scientific discoveries of the time". Sullivan wrote he was "positively unscrupulous" and had an "uneasy apprehensive vanity" in dealings with Newton. Manuel described Hooke as "cantankerous, envious, vengeful". According to More, Hooke had both a "cynical temperament" and a "caustic tongue". Andrade was more sympathetic but still described Hooke as "difficult", "suspicious" and "irritable". In October 1675, the Council of the Royal Society considered a motion to expel Hooke because of an attack he made on Christiaan Huygens over scientific priority in watch design but it did not pass. According to Hooke's biographer Ellen Drake:

if one studies the intellectual milieu of the time, the controversies and rivalries of the type in which he was involved seem almost to be the rule rather than the exception. And Hooke's reaction to such controversy involving his own discoveries and inventions seems mild in comparison to the behaviour of some of his contemporaries".

The publication of Hooke's diary in 1935 revealed previously unknown details about his social and familial relationships. His biographer Margaret 'Espinasse said: "the picture which is usually painted of Hooke as a morose... recluse is completely false". He interacted with noted artisans such as clock-maker Thomas Tompion and instrument-maker Christopher Cocks (Cox). Hooke often met Christopher Wren, with whom he shared many interests, and had a lasting friendship with John Aubrey. His diaries also make frequent reference to meetings at coffeehouses and taverns, as well as to dinners with Robert Boyle. On many occasions, Hooke took tea with his lab assistant Harry Hunt. Although he largely lived alone – apart from the servants who ran his home – his niece Grace Hooke and his cousin Tom Giles lived with him for some years as children.

Hooke never married. According to his diary, Hooke sexually abused his niece Grace, who was in his custody between the ages of 10 and 17; and he also had sexual relations with several maids and housekeepers.

Since childhood, Hooke suffered from migraine, tinnitus, dizziness and bouts of insomnia; he also had a spinal deformity that was consistent with a diagnosis of Scheuermann's kyphosis, giving him in middle and later years a "thin and crooked body, over-large head and protruding eyes". Approaching these in a scientific spirit, he experimented with self-medication, diligently recording symptoms, substances and effects in his diary. He regularly used sal ammoniac, emetics, laxatives and opiates, which appear to have had an increasing effect on his physical and mental health over time.

Hooke died in London on 3 March 1703, having been blind and bedridden during the last year of his life. A chest containing £8,000 in money and gold was found in his room at Gresham College. His library contained over 3,000 books in Latin, French, Italian and English. Although he had talked of leaving a generous bequest to the Royal Society, which would have given his name to a library, laboratory and lectures, no will was found and the money passed to a cousin named Elizabeth Stephens. Hooke was buried at St Helen's Church, Bishopsgate, in the City of London but the precise location of his grave is unknown.