The British Society for the History of Mathematics
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Written by David Singmaster (zingmast@sbu.ac.uk ). Links to relevant external websites are being added occasionally to this gazetteer but the BSHM has no control over the availability or contents of these links. Please inform the BSHM Webster (A.Mann@gre.ac.uk) of any broken links.
[When the gazetteer was edited for serial publication in the BSHM Newsletter, references were omitted since the bibliography was too substantial to be included. Publication on the web permits references to be included for material now being added to the website, but they are still absent from material originally prepared for the Newsletter - TM, August 2002]
Charles Turner, a civil servant, made an outstanding collection of old mathematics books and gave them to the University of Keele in 1968. Thirty years later, the University sold them secretly to a second-hand book-dealer.
John Wilson (1741-1793), of Wilson's Theorem, died at Kendal. John Dalton taught here from age 15 in c1781, and later ran the school until 1793. Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944) was born here and attended the same school.
Sir William Petty (1623-1687), the pioneer political economist and a founder of the Royal Society, was Physician-General to the army in Ireland in 1652. He surveyed 2,800,000 acres of forfeited lands in 1666, earning a penny per acre. Petty was the ancestor of the family of the Marquis of Lansdowne, the first of which laid out the town of Kenmare, but some guidebooks attribute this to Petty in 1670.
George Berkeley (1685-1753) was born in Kilkenny, and was a student at Kilkenny College, or its predecessor St Johns, in 1695-1700.
Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), founder of the British Museum, was born here, north of Downpatrick. In this same village, Edward Hinks (1792-1866), one of the decipherers of cuneiform, was rector from 1826.
Colin Maclaurin (1698-1746) was born in Kilmodan, Glendaruel, near Inverary. There is a monument in the Parish Church.
Thomas Preston was born here in 1860 [Hidden & Latimer, p.10].
Lewis Fry Richardson (1881-1953) retired to Hill House, Kilmun, in 1943. This was not far from Loch Long, where he carried out his famous experiments on relative dispersion in fluid flow by using lots of turnips, c. 1950. Here he did his studies on coastlines, essentially discovering the 'fractal dimension', which inspired Mandelbrot's development of fractals. He also tinkered with an analogue computer for weather prediction, recognising that electronics would be able to solve the problem, either by analogue or by digital means.
John Venn (1834-1923) was born at Drypool, Kingston upon Hull, but his father took on a living in London that year, so his life in Hull would have been brief.
Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974) was Senior Lecturer (in statistics?) at University College, Kingston upon Hull (now the University of Hull) in 1934-1942.
8 miles west of Leicester. Kirkby Mallory Hall belonged to the family of Ada Lovelaces mother, Annabella Milbanke, and the churchyard has a monument to Ada Lovelace. It has fallen into decay over the years, and in 1997 a grant was made by the National Lottery for its restoration.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was schoolmaster at Kirkcaldy, and there is a plaque on his lodgings in Kirk Wynd. Here he translated Legendre's Elements de Geometrie in 1822 for David Brewster (whose name appeared in the book as editor, without mentioning Carlyle). This book later had several American adaptations going through at least 36 American editions and largely determined US geometry teaching well into the C20.
Adam Smith (1723-1790) was born in Kirkcaldy and retired here in 1767. There is a plaque on the site of his house, 220 High Street, where he lived until 1737 and from 1767 to 1778. The actual house, where he wrote Wealth of Nations (1776), was demolished in 1844. A wall survives and a path is called Adam Smith's Close.
At St. Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale is a Saxon sundial labelled with the eight 'tides' of the day.
Addition from Philip Baldwin: This church is located in North Yorkshire, mid-way between Helmsley and Kirkbymoorside and just north of the A170. The sundial is still in place and the following site shows it very well.
Robert Simson (1687-1768) was born in Kirtonhall.
Written by David Singmaster. Last updated on 28th February 2003 by TM (A.Mann@gre.ac.uk). Copyright © BSHM and David Singmaster 1998 - 2003. All rights reserved.
The British Society for the History of Mathematics is registered as a company limited by guarantee, no. 3326816, and as a charity, no. 1061229. Its registered office is c/o Andrew Thurburn & Co, 38 Tamworth Road, Croydon, Surrey CR0 1XU, UK.