There were schools: History of the British Coal Industry, vol. 2, 438.
Hutton injured his arm: Bruce, Memoir, 3 is the fullest of several accounts in the obituaries.
A schoolteacher named Robson: Bruce, Memoir, 4; also Public Characters, vol. 2, 98.
a new, locally produced, grammar book: Anne Fisher, New Grammar (3rd edition: Newcastle, 1753).
He was fond of the so-called ‘border ballads’: Public Characters, vol. 2, 100–01; also Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 201.
the southward march of the Bonnie Prince: Moffat and Rosie, Tyneside, 203–5.
He preached in the fields: The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, vol. 3, pp.14, 59, 67–8, 80, 110–11, 140, 165; also Moffat and Rosie, Tyneside, 202 and Rupert E. Davies, Methodism (London, 1976), 59–60.
reinventing yourself: See Misty G. Anderson, Imagining Methodism in Eighteenth-century Britain: enthusiasm, belief, and the borders of the self (Baltimore and London, 2012), passim.
anecdotes … concerned with his piety: these all appeared first in Public Characters.
‘Never be unemployed for a moment’: Davies, Methodism, 70; see also John Wesley, The Character of a Methodist (Newcastle, 1743).
His teacher, Jonathan Ivison: Bruce, Memoir, 4; also information from theclergydatabase.org.uk.
envied by other students: Public Characters, vol. 2, 98.
Hutton acted as Ivison’s assistant: ‘A Memoir of Charles Hutton’, Newcastle Magazine, 300.
‘putting’: The History of the British Coal Industry, vol. 2, 347–8; Smith, Great Northern Miners, 18; Compleat Collier, 15–16; Fordyce, A History of Coal, 32.
a pay bill from the Long Benton colliery: Bruce, Memoir, 5. Bruce discusses the evidence, which he appears to have seen; the relevant records are catalogued at the Tyne and Wear Archive, but can no longer be located (personal communication from Alyson Pigott at Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, 28 Apr 2015). Compare the probably independent report in Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/7/77 (notes of Thomas Wilson, 28 Mar 1822): a Mr Kirkley was said to be ‘certain that Hutton wrought in old Benton pits’.
Put one leg through a loop in the rope: History of the British Coal Industry, vol. 2, 103. On the physical appearance inside the shafts see Thomas Hair, A Series of Views of the Collieries in the Counties of Northumberland and Durham (1844), 7.
Strip to the ‘buff’: Moffat and Rosie, Tyneside, 189–90: quoting E.A. Rymer, The Martyrdom of the Mine.
vertical cuts from the top of the seam to the bottom: History of the British Coal Industry, vol. 2, 91; also Wilson, The Pitman’s Pay, xi and Smith, Great Northern Miners, 17.
the elite of the pit: E. Neville Williams, Life in Georgian England (1962), 99.
The stars are twinkling in the sky: Joseph Skipsey, Songs and Lyrics (London, 1892), 9.
you shouldn’t ever wish for more: see John Wesley, Instructions for Children (Newcastle, 1746), 14; cf. 35.
‘taken from school’: ‘A Memoir of Charles Hutton’, Newcastle Magazine, 299.
He was ‘laid idle’ one day: Northumberland Collections Service, SANT/BEQ/26/1/7/77 and SANT/BEQ/26/1/8/584, reporting two separate reminiscences of the incident by other miners.
2 Teacher of Mathematics
lots of one-on-one teaching: See Nerida Ellerton and M.A. (Ken) Clements, Rewriting the History of School Mathematics in North America 1607–1861: the central role of cyphering books (Dordrecht, 2012), 19–33; information also from presentations by Nerida Ellerton and Ken Clements at All Souls College, Oxford, December 2014 and December 2015.
The school at High Heaton ran: Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/8/584: Letter of S. Barrass to Thomas Wilson, 1825.
the schoolroom proved too small: Bruce, Memoir, 6; John Sykes, Local Records or Historical Register of Remarkable Events (Newcastle 1833), vol. 1, 49.
‘Like most other young men of a liberal education …’: Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley, 24.
Elementary teaching in particular: Victor E. Neuburg, Popular Education in 18th Century England (London, 1971), 18.
pay only slightly above that of a labourer: Neuburg, Popular Education, Appendix 1; F.J.G. Robinson, ‘Trends in Education in Northern England in the Eighteenth Century: a biographical study’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Newcastle, 1972), 46.
There was no teacher training: Neuburg, Popular Education, 37.
the boast of Dr Parr of Harrow: Williams, Life in Georgian England, 36.
Poor Reuben Dixon has the noisiest School …: George Crabbe, The Borough (London, 1810), quoted in Neuburg, Popular Education, 20.
‘kept up the most rigid order’… carried ‘his severity too far’: Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/7/77 (notes of Thomas Wilson, 28 March 1822).
‘assumed a degree of importance’: Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/7/77 (notes of Thomas Wilson, 28 March 1822).
‘his friends, who would have supported him’: Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/8/584: Letter of S. Barrass to Thomas Wilson, 1825.
He read all he could: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 202; Public characters, vol. 2, 99, 101.
‘Newton’s works and the works of his contemporaries’: all these are cited in Hutton’s Guide or his Mensuration.
attended classes given by a Mr Hugh James: Mackenzie, Historical Account of Newcastle, 557; Bruce, Memoir, 6.
his mother feared for his health: Bruce, Memoir, 6.
his mother that died: Parish register of St Andrew, Newcastle, 17 March 1760 (burial of Eleanor Frame), accessed via www://findmypast.co.uk; Bruce, Memoir, 8.
he returned to St Andrew’s to be married: Durham Record Office, DDR/EJ/MLA 1/1760/70/1 and 70A: marriage licence and bond for Charles Hutton and Isabella Hutton, 7 April 1760.
Soon there was a son: ‘Lieut.-Gen. Hutton’, The Gentleman’s Magazine (December 1827), 561–2; Charles Rogers, ‘Register of the Collegiate Church of Crail, Fifeshire. With Historical Remarks’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (1877), 324–94 at 329; letter of P.J. Anderson in Notes and Queries, series 11, vol. 2 (1910), 347 (stating that the name George Henry – frequently given in print – is incorrect); Niccolò Guicciardini, ‘Hutton, Charles (1737–1823), mathematician’ in ODNB, incorporating ‘George Henry Hutton’.
TO BE OPENED On Monday, April 14th, 1760: Quoted in Bruce, Memoir, 50.
his fees were twice those asked by his rivals: Public Characters, vol. 2, 102.
Friends advised him to promise less: Bruce, Memoir, 7.
northern parents had a reputation: Robinson, ‘Trends in Education’, 33.
James Cook: Moffat and Rosie, Tyneside, 193.
Newcastle became England’s best-educated city: Neuburg, Popular Education, 79.
at the Newcastle ironworks: Neuburg, Popular Education, 80.
Teaching mathematics at this level: John Denniss, Figuring It Out: children’s arithmetical manuscripts, 1680–1880 (Oxford, 2012); also Hutton, Guide, passim.
Hutton had his own special method: Hutton, Guide, v.
how many Flemish guilders will I buy: Hutton, Guide, 100 (the answer is 1839 guilders, 2 stuivers, 11 5/6 penning: there were 16 penning in a stuiver and 20 stuivers in a guilder).
If eight yards of cloth cost twenty-four shillings: Hutton, Guide, 35.
In how many days will eight men finish: Hutton, Guide, 36.
‘Back-Row’: Announcement by N. Stewart, Dancing-Master in Newcastle Chronicle, 24 March 1764; Advertisement for the sale of a colliery in Newcastle Chronicle, 11 May 1765; Bruce, Memoir, 10.
selling tickets for the man’s public balls: Advertisement for a public ball in Newcastle Chronicle, 23 February 1765.
a triangular prism ‘is something like a hat box’: Charles Hutton, A Treatise on Mensuration, both in theory and practice (Newcastle and London, 1770), 139.
‘soon conscious of his great abilities’: Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/7/77 (notes of Thomas Wilson, 28 March 1822).
‘a very modest, shy man’: Letter from Isaac Cookson Esq. to Mr Thomas Hodgson, printed in Bruce, Memoir, 15.
knocking a boy down in the street: Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/7/77 (notes of Thomas Wilson, 28 March 1822) and Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/8/584: Letter of S. Barrass to Thomas Wilson, 1825.
three more children: Register of Hanover Square Presbyterian Chapel, Newcastle, 23 May 1762 (Isabella) and 25 April 1769 (Eleanor), accessed via www://freereg.org.uk and ancestry.co.uk. For Camilla see ‘Deaths’ in The Gentleman’s Magazine (October 1794), 957 and Guicciardini, ‘Hutton, Charles’ in ODNB.
The chapel there was established in 1727: Mackenzie, Historical Account of Newcastle, 374.
one report says he wrote sermons: Public Characters, 100; also William Wood Stamp, The Orphan-House of Wesley; with notices of early Methodism in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and its vicinity (1863), 245.
a reputation for Unitarianism: A.-H. Maehle, ‘Clark, John (bap. 1744, d. 1805), physician’ in ODNB; http://www.ukunitarians.org.uk/newcastleupontyne/history.htm; Constance Mary Fraser and Kenneth Emsley, Tyneside (Newton Abbot, 1973), 75; Moffat and Rosie, Tyneside, 215.
questioned even … traditionally core doctrines: Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley, 23; Isabel Rivers and David L. Wykes, Joseph Priestley, scientist, philosopher, and theologian (Oxford, 2008), 190.
Probate courts, marriage, schools and universities: Rivers and Wykes, Joseph Priestley, 5, 11.
a final move to Westgate Street: Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/7/77 (notes of Thomas Wilson, 28 March 1822); J.R. Boyle, Vestiges of Old Newcastle and Gateshead (Newcastle, 1890), 152.
quite the elegant Georgian pile: The house is described in an advertisement in the Newcastle Courant, 5 June 1773.
The old town walls: Moffat and Rosie, Tyneside, 210; Charles Hutton, A Plan of Newcastle Upon Tyne and Gateshead, taken from an accurate survey, finished in the year 1770 (Newcastle, 1770, 1772).
tall elegant buildings and wide open spaces: Tyne and Wear Museums, TWCMS: 2003.1007 (print of ‘Newcastle-upon-Tyne from the South’); TWCMS: G5272 (John H. Wilson, ‘St Nicholas Church, Newcastle upon Tyne’).
three hundred street lamps and a well-organised night watch: Hutton, Plan.
Subscription concerts: Roz Southey, Margaret Maddison and David Hughes, The Ingenious Mr Avison: making music and money in eighteenth-century Newcastle (Newcastle, 2009), 34–7, 91 and passim.
A literary club; theatres: Southey et al., The Ingenious Mr Avison, 47; Moffat and Rosie, Tyneside, 199.
Scientific lectures: Peter and Ruth Wallis, Mathematical Tradition in the North of England (Durham, 1991), 22–3; N.A. Hans, New Trends in Education in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1951), 110; Robinson, ‘Trends in Education’, 287–8, 302–20.
The sale of coal was so lucrative: Hutton, Plan.
William Emerson: William Emerson, Tracts (new edition, London, 1793), i–xxii.
John Fryer: Bruce, Memoir, 13; Mackenzie, Historical Account of Newcastle, 558.
The school had its own separate entrance: Advertisement for the let of the school in Newcastle Courant, 5 June 1773.
‘Youth are qualified for the Army, Navy, Counting-house’: Advertisement in the Newcastle Courant, 7 April 1770.
Newcastle Grammar School took to sending its students to Hutton: Bruce, Memoir, 10.
private academies did mathematics and science better: Wallis, Mathematical Tradition, 16.
Hutton’s ‘manners, as well as his talents’: Charles Hutton, ed. Edward Riddle, Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy (new edition, London, 1840), vii.
Robert Shaftoe: Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/8/584: Letter of S. Barrass to Thomas Wilson, 1825.
he took to attending the lessons himself: Bruce, Memoir, 7.
a reading knowledge of French, Latin, Italian and German: A Catalogue of the entire, extensive and very rare mathematical library of Charles Hutton, L.L.D. [London, 1816], passim; letter of Charles Hutton to Robert Harrison, 13 Jan 1779 in Sidney Melmore, ‘Some Letters from Charles Hutton to Robert Harrison’, The Mathematical Gazette 30 (1946), 71–81.
public lectures in the subject: Advertisement in the Newcastle Courant, 25 April 1772.
taught mathematics to other schoolteachers: Advertisement in the Newcastle Courant, 27 December 1766.
external lecturers began to use it: Charles Hutton, Tracts on Mathematical and Philosophical Subjects (3 vols: London, 1812), vol. 3, p. 379.
Caleb Rotherham: Hans, New Trends, 110.
John Scott: ‘Memoir of the Right Hon. John Scott, Earl of Eldon’, Imperial Magazine (July 1827), 593–600 at 593.
Both went to Hutton: Lord Eldon to General Hutton, 3 February 1823: letter printed in Bruce, Memoir, 47. See also Moffat and Rosie, Tyneside, 207, and Wilson Hepple, The Elopement of Bessie Surtees (oil on canvas, 1890).
3 Author
The majority of mathematics teachers: Hans, New Trends, 68–9.
a dozen or so monthly or annual magazines: Raymond Clare Archibald, ‘Notes on Some Minor English Mathematical Serials’, The Mathematical Gazette 14 (1929), 379–400; also Olaf Pedersen, ‘The “Philomath” of 18th Century England’, Centaurus 8 (1963), 238–62; Shelley Costa, ‘The Ladies’ Diary: society, gender and mathematics in England, 1704–1754’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 2000).
The austere language of mathematics: Teri Perl, ‘The Ladies’ Diary or Woman’s Almanack, 1704–1841’, Historia Mathematica 6 (1979), 36–53 at 41, 48; Shelley Costa, ‘The “Ladies’ Diary”: gender, mathematics, and civil society in early-eighteenth-century England’, Osiris 17 (2002), 49–73 at 49, 71 and passim.
problems in Martin’s Magazine: Benjamin Martin (ed.), Miscellaneous Correspondence vol. 4 (London, 1764), 767–8 (dated December 1761) and various subsequent appearances up to December 1763. Public Characters, vol. 2, p. 103, is the authority for identifying Hutton with Tonthu.
Benjamin Martin: P.J. Wallis, ‘British Philomaths – Mid-eighteenth Century and Earlier’, Centaurus 17 (1973), 301–14 at 303.
five of his solutions were printed: The Gentleman’s Diary [London, 1763].
home of the hardest: Pedersen, ‘The “Philomath”’, passim; Joe Albree and Scott H. Brown, ‘“A Valuable Monument of Mathematical Genius”: The Ladies’ Diary (1704–1840)’, Historia Mathematica 36 (2009), 10–47 at 21.
The Ladies’ Diary: see Costa, ‘The Ladies’ Diary’ (2000).
considerable additions are made: Charles Hutton (ed.), Miscellanea Mathematica (London, 1775), 1.
Having already attended the schools: Robinson, ‘Trends in Education’, Appendix 1 (unpaginated), s.v. Hutton; Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/7/77 (notes of Thomas Wilson, 28 March 1822).
historically motivated programme: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 202.
if a multiplier is itself a product: Hutton, Guide, 28, 30.
But ultimately the aim: Hutton, Guide, 95.
‘calculations of the same accounts’: Hutton, Guide, 153.
Hutton paid for the printing himself: Hutton, Guide, title page.
His patron Robert Shaftoe: Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/8/584: Letter of S. Barrass to Thomas Wilson, 1825; Hutton, Guide, a2r.
cutting his own type with a penknife: Public Characters, vol. 2, p. 104; ‘Biographical Anecdotes of Charles Hutton, L.L.D. F.R.S.’, The Philosophical Magazine 21 (February 1805), 62–7 at 63.
advertised in a number of newspapers: London Evening Post, 20 March 1764; London Chronicle, 12 April 1764; Public Advertiser, 16 April 1764.
The Banson dynasty: Wallis, Mathematical Tradition, 16; William Banson, The Schoolmaster and Scholar’s Mutual Assistant (London and Newcastle, 1760).
Another northern author: William Emerson, Cyclomathesis: or an easy introduction to the several branches of the mathematics (London, 1763).
‘been found … useful in schools’: ‘Hutton’s Arithmetic and Book-Keeping’, General Evening Post, 23 July 1771.
riding over to the village of Prudhoe: Woodhorn, SANT/BEQ/26/1/8/584: Letter of S. Barrass to Thomas Wilson, 1825.
Announced in the Newcastle papers: Proposal for printing the
Mensuration by subscription, Newcastle Chronicle, 26 December 1767.
the list of subscribers: Hutton, Mensuration, v–xiv.
fifteen shillings a book: Advert for the Mensuration, The Leeds Intelligencer, 16 April 1771.
‘that part of the country’: Charles Hutton, The Principles of Bridges (Newcastle, London and Edinburgh 1772), iv.
‘A Line is a length’: Hutton, Mensuration, 1.
‘A conoid …’: Hutton, Mensuration, 217.
‘General Scholium’: Hutton, Mensuration, 28–32.
a note which set out the history: Hutton, Mensuration, 85–9.
typical burst of complexity: Hutton, Mensuration, 234–41.
a letter to one of the Newcastle papers: letter concerning rules for cutting timber, Newcastle Courant, 13 February 1768.
six hundred feet of plaster mouldings: Hutton, Mensuration, 599.
some poor reviews: Review of the Mensuration in The Critical Review 32 (October 1771), 286–8.
by far the best treatise: ‘Charles Hutton, LL.D. F.R.S.’, in Thomas Leybourn (ed.), New Series of the Mathematical Repository, vol. 5 (London, 1830), 187–96 at 189.
O Science!: Thomas Sadler, ‘Science, a poem’ (London, 1768), also quoted in P.M. Horsley, Eighteenth-Century Newcastle (Newcastle, 1971), 47.
Bewick … did some of his first work on the Mensuration: Public Characters, vol. 2, p. 107; ‘Memoir of Mr. Thomas Bewick’, The Gentleman’s Magazine (January 1829), 17–20 at 18; Horsley, Eighteenth-Century Newcastle, 46 (quote).
102-page book on the theory of bridge building: Hutton, Bridges; see also Hutton, Plan; Isaac Farrer, Narrative of the Great Flood in the Rivers Tyne, Tease, Wear, &c. on the 16th and 17th of Nov. 1771 (Newcastle, 1772).
the reviewers were quick to point out: Reviews of Hutton, Bridges in The Critical Review 34 (November 1772), 374–6; Monthly Review 48 (January 1773), 71; The Weekly Magazine 19 (25 March 1773), 406; The Town and Country Magazine 11 (April 1779), 176; Journal encyclopédique 35 (February 1773), 534–5.
Gunpowder and Geometry Page 24