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]
Dafydd Nanmor lived in the early 15th Century at Nanmor (probably Nantmor ??) on the south side of Mt. Snowdon - he was a poet and "was fond of puzzles, astronomy, and grammar" [Beazley & Howell, p. 153].
In Marsden Park is an icosahedral sundial indicating times at various places in the world. It was made in the early 19C by an American master mason. [Richard Peace, Lancashire Curiosities, The Dovecote Press, Wimborne, Dorset, 1997, p.32, sadly without a photo]
Henry Moseley (1801-1872) was born at Newcastle-under-Lyme, where his father ran a private school. He attended school in Newcastle (his father's??).
Johannes Duns Scotus (c1265-1308) is believed to have studied and entered the Franciscan Order at Grey Friars Monastery, Newcastle, c1280 [Myers, p. 27; Blue Guide].
Charles Hutton (1737-1823) was born in Percy Street, Newcastle. He began teaching in the neighbouring village of Jesmond (now the northern part of the city) in 1755, soon becoming the master of the school. He returned to Newcastle and set up a school there in 1760 at the head of the Flesh Market. In c1770, he was occupying the school-house at the foot of Westgate Street. As a consequence of a flood washing away the bridge on 17 Nov 1771, he wrote a Treatise on the Principles of Bridges. He made the first accurate map of the city [Trevor H. Hall, Old Conjuring Books, Duckworth, London, 1972, p.160] - but [E. Mackenzie, A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Town and County of Newcastle upon Tyne including the Borough of Gateshead, p. 444] says the map was drawn by Hutton's pupil John Fryer. Hutton left for London in 1773 and never returned. There is a bust and a portrait of Hutton in the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society [Archibald (3), pp.30-31; Peter Ransom, Sundial corner - No. 14: Hutton's recreations, BSHM Newsletter 36 (Spring 1998) 36-40]. [Anon, Memoir of the late Dr. Hutton]
The Literary and Philosophical Society was founded in 1793 - it was the second such society outside London, after Manchester. It has an 1822-1825 building in Westgate Road at the corner of Collingwood Street. Hutton was an early Honorary Member, along with Joseph Priestley, Matthew Boulton and Sir Joseph Banks. The Society has a bust and a portrait of Hutton. It has a considerable library in a fine room and this is open to visitors.
There is (was?) a Museum of Science and Engineering in Exhibition Park, part of the Town Moor, off the Great North Road [Blue Guide].
William Herschel was codirector of a concert here in 1761 [F. Brown].
Trinity House School, Broad Chare, has little surviving except a sundial. There is a plaque on the building. Edward Riddle (1788-1854) was master in 1814-1821. [Peter Ransom, Sundial corner - no. 5: Trinity House, Newcastle upon Tyne, BSHM Newsletter 27 (Aut 1994) 31-32.] He later edited Hutton's translation of Ozanam for at least four editions in 1840-1854. Andrew Tinwell (1784?-1845) also taught here - he was best known as the reviser of Tinwell's Arithmetic, by his father William Tinwell ( -1808) [letter from Peter Ransom, 22 Feb 1993].
William Garnett (1850-1932) was the first Principal of Durham College of Science, which became the University, from 1884 to 1893 [B.M. Allen, pp. 35-53].
Lewis Fry Richardson(1881-1953) was born in Newcastle and attended Newcastle Preparatory School until 1893. He attended the now University in 1898-1900, then went to Cambridge.
The Institute of Physics has erected a plaque to Charles Parsons, the inventor of the steam turbine. The telescope firm of Grubb Parsons was here, but made its last mirror for the William Herschel Telescope on Las Palmas in 1987 [P. Moore (4), p.92].
In Apr 1943 - Feb 1944, Ludwig Wittgenstein worked at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, assisting Basil Reeve in trauma research. He stayed in a nursing students' hostel, or at Mrs Moffat's house, 28 Brandling Park (possibly the same place??) [Myers, p.91]. In 1997, a commemorative plaque was erected at the hospital. [Martin Wainwright, Broadcaster's fib leads to honour for philosopher, The Guardian (4 Dec 1997) 12]
Peter John Wallis (1918-1992) taught at King's College, later the University of Newcastle, from c1962. He, assisted by his wife Ruth, established the first substantial bio-bibliographical database for the history of British mathematics and amassed a substantial collection of early British mathematical books which have now been transferred to the University library.
In St. Nicholas churchyard, Gosforth, on the northern outskirts of Newcastle, is buried John Ramsay (1708?-1783), a local schoolteacher and mathematics master whose gravestone includes "To Mathematicks he inclined, / His Mind was always gay / An Husband good & Parent kind / Was honest John Ramsay" [letter and photos from Peter Ransom, 29 Apr 1996].
Here is a restored castle of the Desmonds. The display on the family states that the 3rd Earl of Desmond (14th Century) was a noted mathematician! Brendan Lehane has added some details. Gerald Fitzmaurice, variously called the 3rd or 4th Earl of Desmond ( -c1398) inherited the title from his oldest brother in 1359; there seems to have been another elder brother who was 'an idiot' and not allowed to inherit the title. The DNB says 'He is also described as a mathematician and magician', but cites several MS sources. At that time, a mathematician was much more like a magician than a modern mathematician, e.g. like Roger Bacon or Albertus Magnus, so he may not have done anything that we presently would consider mathematics. Indeed, at the siege of Limerick in 1691, some hoped he would reappear from the waters of Lough Air to lead the Irish forces to victory. Can anyone provide more details??
Percy John Heawood (1861-1955) was born here [Biggs, Lloyd & Wilson, p. 217].
Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) lived at "Bradley View", Newton Abbot, in 1897-1908. See under London for his work and early life and also Paignton, below. Fitzgerald visited him here in 1898. In 1899, Fitzgerald asked him about electromagnetic wave propagation around a sphere, which Marconi's experiments showed to occur. In 1901, Heaviside and A. E. Kennelley noted that the sea was a conducting layer, as was the earth to a lesser extent, so that if there was a conducting layer in the atmosphere, then electromagnetic waves would be guided between them to circle the earth. Heaviside made these observations in his article on 'Telegraphy, Theory' in the 1902 supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Heaviside Layer (or Ionosphere) was found to exist and explained why Marconi's wireless telegraphy works. His Electromagnetic Theory appeared in three volumes in 1893, 1899 & 1912. He declined the Hughes Medal of the RS in 1904. PhD honoris causa from Göttingen in 1905. Hon. Mem. IEE in 1908. Moved to Torquay in 1908. [Whittaker (3)]
In the Church of St. John the Baptist, there is a roof boss of the Tinners' Hares (or Three Rabbits) which possibly dates to the 13th Century and there is a modern embroidered kneeler with the pattern. The leaflet guide to the Church says the pattern was an emblem of the tin-miners of the 14th Century and is also found at Widecombe and other Devon churches and is thought by some to refer to the Trinity. The symbol is used by a number of local firms as a logo - though I didn't see any on my visit. Thanks to Harry James, Churchwarden, for his letter of 25 Apr 1997, his drawing of the pattern and a copy of the guide.
North Marden, on the B2141 between Petersfield and Chichester, was the site of Telegraph House, which Bertrand and Dora Russell converted into Beacon Hill School in 1927. Dora continued to run the School after their divorce in 1935. [Eastman, p.218]
Robert Woodhouse (1773-1827) and Henry George Forder (1889-1981) attended Paston Grammar School here [Robb].
Edward Cocker, of Cocker's Arithmetick, taught here, for a period from 1667 [Wallis].
At Northiam, near Rye, Brickwall House and Garden has a topiary chess garden [D. J. Allen, p.83]. Cf Compton Wynyates, Hever Castle.
James Bradley attended Northleach Grammar School.
A local guide book states that 'the layout of a medieval game' is carved on a stone bench in the cloisters of Norwich Cathedral, [Anon, Norwich Official Guide, Norwich Publicity Assoc. & East Anglia Tourist Board, nd [1973?], p.25]. No photograph is given and I haven't seen it, but it is most likely a Nine Men's Morris board.
The first municipal public library in Britain was founded in Norwich, in 1608. The original 1772 volumes are still in the city library. [Dunn & Martin, p.117.] Cf Manchester and Reigate; and also Innerpeffray and Marsh's Library, Dublin.
Samuel Clarke (1675-1729) was born in Norwich [Ball (5), p.76].
Robert Woodhouse (1773-1827) was born in Norwich [Ball (5), p.118].
Hubert Horace Lamb (1913-1997, grandson of the applied mathematician) was the pioneer student of climatic changes. He came to the new University of East Anglia (on the outskirts of Norwich), c1971, as professor and first director of the Climatic Research Unit. [Anthony Tucker, A change in the weather, The Guardian (30 Jun 1997) 15]
Martin Hollis (1938-1998) was a distinguished professor of philosophy here, but he was also a noted composer of logic puzzles for New Scientist and a collection of these appeared as Tantalizers: A Book of Original Logical Puzzles in 1970.
John Harrison's father was a carpenter here. A recased 1717 clock of Harrison's is here. This is a National Trust site about 6 miles SW of Pontefract, off the A638. The village of Foulby, qv above, where John Harrison (1693-1776) was born, is on the estate. Probably about 1697, they moved to Barrow-upon-Humber, qv above.
George Green (1793-1841), of Green's functions and Green's theorem, was a miller on Belvoir Hill in Sneinton, now just to the east of central Nottingham. He was probably born in Wheatsheaf Yard, off Upper Parliament Street. He was baptized in St. Mary's Church. At age 8, he attended Robert Goodacre's Academy in Upper Parliament Street for four terms, leaving in 1801. In 1807, his father bought the land in Sneinton and built the mill and, ten years later, the adjacent house. The area around the mill is still called Green's Gardens. Here he did all his early work and published his An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism in 1828, introducing the term 'potential'.. Little is known about how he acquired the necessary knowledge of continental mathematics, but John Toplis, a Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, was headmaster of Nottingham Free School in 1806-1819. Toplis was an enthusiast for Leibnizian calculus and continental mathematics and had translated the first book of Laplace's Mécanique Céleste and published it himself in Nottingham in 1814. It seems likely that Green studied with Toplis, or at least read his books. In 1833, Green entered Cambridge. When he returned from Cambridge in 1839 (or 1840), he stayed (and died?) at the house of his common law wife Jane at 3 Notintone Place, now part of the Salvation Army Community Centre, opposite No. 12 where William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army) was born. This is to the north of St. Stephen's church where Green, his parents, Jane and several of their children are buried in the churchyard. No portrait or description of Green remains. The mill at the top of nearby Belvoir Terrace, where Green did his mathematics, was severely damaged by fire in 1947. A memorial fund purchased it in 1979 and donated it to the city. It has now been restored as a working mill and Science Centre, opened in 1985. The fountain has part of Green's Theorem in it. As part of the Green Bicentenary Celebrations in 1993, the University Science and Engineering Library has been named the George Green Library. [Wilkins-Jones; Challis;.Cannell; Cannell & Lord]
William Garnett (1850-1932) was the first Professor of Mathematics and Physics at University College, Nottingham, from 1882 to 1884. This was the first municipal college in England and later became the University. [B. M. Allen, pp.31-35.]
Burroughs first began overseas production of adding machines and calculators at its premises in Bell Street at Kirkby Street in 1898. This was still in use in the 1950s.
Henry Thomas Herbert Piaggio (1884-1967) was lecturer at the University of Nottingham from 1908 and then the first Professor of Mathematics in 1919-1950. Einstein lectured at the University in 1929 (or 1930?) and the blackboard he used was varnished over and preserved in the Physics Department.
About 6 miles north of Nottingham lies Hucknall Torkard, Notts., whose church contains the tomb of Lord Byron, not far from Newstead Abbey where he grew up. Beside him lies his daughter, Ada, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), now celebrated as the friend of Babbage and the first person to write a computer program - in 1845!
A bit further north is the church of St. John the Baptist, Ault Hucknall, Derbyshire, which contains Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the political philosopher and circle squarer [Greenwood (2), p.145].
Thomas Simpson moved to Nuneaton, in the 1720s and married his landlady, a widow, in 1730. Apparently he dabbled in astrology and had to flee to Derby when a girl had a fit while being exorcised. He moved to London in 1736. [Anon, Thomas Simpson]
St. Boniface's Church has a tomb of Andrew Munday (died 3 Dec 1632) with three brass plates containing three Chronograms. [Peter Ransom has kindly provided a photo and a copy of the church guide-book.] The top, diamond-shaped plate has an astronomical illustration showing Gemini about to enter the winter solstice and "LXI LVX MVNDI", giving MDLLXXVVII = 1632. I wonder if the upper LXI is his age?? Towards the bottom of the main plate is:
Vt cereI fVnVs aC phoenICI CInIs
Vesper ApoLLInI sIC MIhI fInIs,
giving MCCCCCLLVVVVIIIIIIIIIIII = 1632 again. The bottom plate, again diamond-shaped,
has the family crest and motto: NEC ZENITH NEC NADIR. The church guide says:
"The numerical letters contained in this motto compose the third chronogram
- very difficult to decipher - but indicating the day and month of his decease
as well as the year." This completely baffles me. Possibly it refers to
small letters enclosed within the ribbon of the motto but which are too small
to be distinguished on the photo I have. Or possibly it refers to some cryptic
reading of the letters CICDI??
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.
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