Ray returned to his native village of Black Notley, near Braintree in Essex. After Ray joined up with a former student, Francis Willughby, the pair spent three years in continental Europe, discovering what the latest scientific ideas were. When he returned to England in Spring 1666, he joined the new Royal Society, and devoted himself to the study of natural history. His most important scientific works were supported financially by the Royal Society, whose President at a critical time in the 1680s was Samuel Pepys.