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I don't think anybody had postulated the invariance of the speed of light before Einstein (except perhaps the ballistic theory). The michelson-morley and relate

I don't think anybody had postulated the invariance of the speed of light before Einstein (except perhaps the ballistic theory). The michelson-morley and related experiments were interpreted as a "failure to detect the motion of aether", not as proof for light speed invariance. What's more, we now know that the michelson-morley result is was not even what motivated einstein, but it was one of the first results explained by his theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment

Retric 15y ago
As a fleshed out theory, no. There is no privileged frame of reference in Newtonian mechanics, so that's not exactly a new idea. People had been measuring the speed of light for a while, so light having speed X and no privileged frame of reference is no great leap over the 50+ years they had been measuring the speed of light it had probably occurred to thousands of people as one of the possibility's. The aether idea and ballistic theory where a few of the many possibility's being considered back then. Anyway, what Einstein did was deeper than just saying the speed of light was constant and there are no privileged frames of reference. Einstein got the math in all it's glory to work out.
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