cousin James Hutton’s grandmother: London, University College archives, MS Galton 2/4/1/2/9 (letter of Charles Blacker Vignoles to Francis Galton, 17 Nov 1865); Royal Society MC/3/150 (letter of Charles Blacker Vignoles to the Marquis of Northampton, 25 Mar 1841; copy in Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles papers, letter 751).
the tale had the Hutton family: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 201.
Hutton’s wife Isabella died: Sykes, Local Records, 336, giving the date as 26 May; Newcastle Magazine (May 1785), 240; Mackenzie, Historical Account of Newcastle, 560.
She became Margaret Hutton: England, Births and Christenings, 1538–1975, and Crisp’s Index (licence dated 22 July); also London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1597–1921, accessed via ancestry.co.uk.
I was the last to consent: C.F. Adams (ed.), The works of John Adams, second president of the United States (Boston, 1850–6), vol. 8, pp. 255–7, quoted in John Cannon, ‘George III (1738–1820), king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and king of Hanover’ in ODNB.
Servicing public debt: John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: war, money and the English state, 1688–1783 (London, 1989), 94.
the British Army was sharply reduced: Graham, The Story of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, 21.
no commissions in sight: Shepperd, Sandhurst, 21.
three ‘academies’: Guggisberg, ‘The Shop’, 31.
Hutton wasn’t one to stick rigidly: Charles Hutton, A Course of Mathematics (London, 1798), vol. 1, p. iv.
Howard Douglas: Fullom, General Sir Howard Douglas, 16–17.
As a preceptor: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 219.
the unhealthiness of the Woolwich site: Simpson, Select Exercises, xxii.
leave to move further away: Hogg, The Royal Arsenal, vol. 1, p. 388, citing Public Record Office WO/47/109, p. 860; Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 218.
a few other officers’ houses: Saint and Guillery, ‘Woolwich Common’, 2, 5, 10.
Hutton had little hesitation: Bruce, Memoir, 20; Saint and Guillery, ‘Woolwich Common’, 5; Charles Hutton, ‘Note on the Divining Rod’, Philosophical Magazine 55/266 (June 1820), 466.
Even the bricks and slates: Public Characters, vol. 2, pp. 122–3.
Maskelyne lent him: Cambridge University Library, REG 9/37: 2 (Notebook of accounts of Nevil Maskelyne), 83.
the Cube House: Saint and Guillery, ‘Woolwich Common’, 6, but the statement there that Hutton did not live in the Cube House is contradicted elsewhere: Hutton, ‘Note on the Divining Rod’, 466; letter of Charles and Isabella Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 22 Aug and 28 Sep 1814, in Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers.
made his fortune: Bruce, Memoir, 22.
8 A Military Man
Woolwich Common, 13 September 1787: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 3, p. 84.
‘Our British university’: ‘Woolwich’ (unpaginated) in The Copper-Plate Magazine (London, 1792–1802); also obituary of Charles Hutton in The Edinburgh Annual Register 16 (December 1823), 328–31 at 329.
Private academies adopted its textbooks: An Abstract of the Course of Education, taught at the Royal Military and Marine Academy, at Belmont on Summer-Hill, Dublin (Dublin, 1784).
The foundation of the Royal Military College: Shepperd, Sandhurst, 11, 21, 24, 28.
the East India Company’s training college: H.M. Vibart, Addiscombe, its heroes and men of note (Westminster, 1894), 5; Jones, Records of the RMA, 47–8, 63.
‘Brief, yet comprehensive’: Charles Hutton, The Compendious Measurer (London, 1786), title page, iii.
‘my plumber’: Hutton, Compendious Measurer, 311, 307.
a Key … to his Guide: Charles Hutton, A Key to Hutton’s Arithmetic (London, 1786).
as far as possible, reused the same wording: Charles Hutton, Elements of Conic Sections (London, 1787), ix.
the odd mistake: Hutton, Conic Sections, 69 (text wrongly reprinted from the ‘ellipse’ section under corollary 3).
Repeat the working: Hutton, Conic Sections, 161, 135, 152.
It circulated as a manuscript: Hutton, Conic Sections, vii.
‘I am much pleased’: Letter of John Playfair to Charles Hutton, 21 Apr 1788, Wellcome Collection MS 7430 no. 38.
presented at court: ‘Biographical anecdotes’, 67; Public Characters, vol. 2, p. 121.
gunnery teaching: Such as Oxford, Bodleian MS Eng. Misc. e 146, treatise ‘On the Mathematical Principles of Gunnery’ by William Lambton, c. 1781–2; Reuben Burrow, A Restitution of the Geometrical Treatise of Apollonius Pergæus on Inclinations, also the theory of gunnery (London, 1779), xxv.
the parabola theory therefore provided: Hogg, A History of Artillery, 41; Hutton, Course, vol. 2, p. 163; Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol 3, p. 266.
Benjamin Robins: Benjamin Robins, New Principles of Gunnery (London, 1742; ed. Hutton, 1805); Steele, ‘Muskets and Pendulums’.
how muzzle speed depended …: Hutton, Tracts (1786), 249–62.
a machine to test and quantify: Hutton, Tracts (1812), 153–63; Seymour H. Mauskopf, ‘Chemistry in the Arsenal: state regulation and scientific methodology of gunpowder in eighteenth-century England and France’, in The Heirs of Archimedes: science and the art of war through the Age of Enlightenment, ed. Brett D. Steele and Tamera Dorland (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 293–330 at 312; Baker, ‘Hutton’s Experiments at Woolwich, 1783–1791’, 257–98 at 259, 290.
firing balls down the Thames: Hutton, Tracts (1786), 216–20 and passim.
the shot were wandering: Hutton, Tracts (1786), 223–4.
the quality of ‘windage’: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 3, p. 261; also Douglas, Naval Gunnery, 154.
the Magnus effect: W. Johnson, ‘Benjamin Robins: a neglected mid-18th century military engineer-scientist’, in Collected Works on Benjamin Robins and Charles Hutton (New Delhi, 2001), 1–12 at 8; W. Johnson, ‘The Magnus Effect: early investigations and a question of priority’, in Collected Works, 13–32, passim.
a cannon that was itself: Hutton, Tracts (1786), 107–8 and passim.
Robins’s old apparatus: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 3, 163–208.
Hutton received detailed reports: ‘Firepower’, MS 913/2.
the results were disappointing: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 3, pp. 209–315.
the two-and-one-tenth power: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 3, p. 225.
He drew a picture: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 3, pp. 267–9, 274–8.
exercises that he included: Hutton, Course, vol. 2, p. 164.
‘Military tactics have been much benefited’: Obituary of Hutton in London Magazine 7 (March 1823), 368; also obituary of Hutton in The Literary Chronicle 5 (1 February 1823), 77; Douglas, Naval Gunnery, 27, 32, 139.
short-nosed ‘carronades’: Hutton, Tracts (1786), 103; Robins, New Principles (1805), 36–7; Charles Hutton, George Shaw and Richard Pearson (eds), The Philosophical Transactions … abridged (London, 1809), vol. 18, p. 172; review of Hutton, Tracts (1812) in The Quarterly Review (1813), 400–18 at 414.
his opinion about reducing windage: Douglas, Naval Gunnery, 92; essay review including Hutton, Tracts (1812), in The British Review 20 (1822), 283–300 at 289–90.
Henry Shrapnel and William Congreve: Hogg, A History of Artillery, 51; Steele, ‘Military “Progress”’, 372; Hughes, British Smooth-Bore Artillery, 56; The Story of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, 14; Simon Werrett, ‘Congreve’s Rational Rockets’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society 63 (2009), 35–56, passim.
an important site: Saul David, All the King’s Men: the British redcoat in the era of sword and musket (London, 2012), 368–9; Johnson, ‘Prototypical’, 218–19; Mauskopf, ‘Chemistry in the Arsenal’, 308, 311; Werrett, ‘Rational Rockets’, 37, 39; Niccolò Guicciardini, The Development of Newtonian Calculus in Britain 1700–1800 (Cambridge, 1989), 109; Jenny Bulstrode, ‘The Promiscuous exercises of the Woolwich Bois Boys’, paper given at All Souls College, Oxford, December 2015.
actual landings: Catriona Kennedy, Narratives of War: mil
itary and civilian experience in Britain and Ireland, 1793–1815 (Basingstoke, 2013), 166 and passim.
forge a nation: Linda Colley, Britons: forging the nation (London, 2003); Kennedy, Narratives of War.
nine years of economy: David, All the King’s Men, 313.
a whole breed: C.J. Esdaile, ‘The British Army in the Napoleonic Wars: approaches old and new’ [essay review], English Historical Review 130 (2015), 123–137 at 125.
one man in four: Kennedy, Narratives of War, 5.
Professional families flooded: Mark S. Thompson, ‘The Rise of the Scientific Soldier as Seen Through the Performance of the Corps of Royal Engineers During the Early 19th Century’ (Doctoral thesis, University of Sunderland, 2009), 117; Esdaile, ‘The British Army’, 124.
the award in 1833: W.Y. Carman and Michael Roffe, The Royal Artillery (Reading, 1973), 14.
William Congreve: Carman and Roffe, The Royal Artillery, 11.
ten thousand rounds in a day: The Story of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, 34.
A new horse artillery … new battalions: Thompson, ‘The Scientific Soldier’, 91; Carman and Roffe, The Royal Artillery, 11.
the Royal Engineers: Thompson, ‘The Scientific Soldier’, passim.
The number of cadets increased: Jones, Records of the RMA, 56, 57.
complaints … about overcrowding: Jones, Records of the RMA, 43.
‘so small as to be insufficient’: Charles Hutton, A Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary containing an explanation of the terms, and an account of the several subjects, comprized under the heads mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy both natural and experimental (2 vols: London 1795–1796), vol. 1, p. 17; Jones, Records of the RMA, 43, 61.
to ask rather desperately: Jones, Records of the RMA, 44.
the cadets of the East India Company: Jones, Records of the RMA, 47–8.
the Irish corps of artillery: Jones, Records of the RMA, 50–51.
to lecture on natural philosophy: Jones, Records of the RMA, 49.
the summer vacation: Jones, Records of the RMA, 54; Thompson, ‘The Scientific Soldier’, 49.
‘Disgraceful irregularities’: Jones, Records of the RMA, 43–4, 34, 41; also William Saint, Four Letters to Lieutenant Colonel Mudge (London, 1811), 28.
two new mathematical assistants: Jones, Records of the RMA, 53.
management of students’ progression: Jones, Records of the RMA, 56, 61; Saint, Four Letters, 13–14.
real utility to the war effort: Thompson, ‘The Scientific Soldier’, 51, 77, 81.
his daughters Charlotte and Eleanor: Obituary of Charlotte Hutton in The Gentleman’s Magazine (October 1794), 960–61; letter of Eleanor Wills (née Hutton) to Charles Blacker Vignoles, December 1816, in Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 127 (this is the only evidence for Eleanor’s residence in France). Charlotte was baptised (aged 12) on 4 September 1790, at St Clement Danes Westminster: parish register accessed via www://findmypast.co.uk.
Charlotte was a particularly welcome addition: Obituaries of Charlotte Hutton in The Gentleman’s Magazine (October 1794), 960–61; in the Hibernian Magazine (1794), 477–8; ‘Hutton, Charlotte’ in W.M. Johnson and Thomas Exley, The New Imperial Encyclopaedia (London, n.d.), vol. 3, pp. 60–61.
Charles Henry Vignoles: Letter of Charles Henry Vignoles to Charles Hutton, 31 October 1790, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers 1072A/App. 1 (printed in Keith H. Vignoles, The Infant Ensign: the story of Charles and Camilla Vignoles and their son Charles Blacker (Emsworth, 1967) as appendix 1; see also appendix 2); marriage licence of Camilla Hutton and Cha[rle]s Henry Vignoles, dated 16 December 1790 accessed via www://findmypast.co.uk; Olinthus J. Vignoles, Life of Charles Blacker Vignoles: a reminiscence of early railway history (London, 1889), 4; Keith Hutton Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, romantic engineer (Cambridge, 1982), 1.
the birth of his grandson: Letter of Charles Henry Vignoles to Charles Hutton, 3 Jun 1793, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers 1072A/App. 4 (printed in Vignoles, Infant Ensign as appendix 4).
ordered to the West Indies: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 1; Kennedy, Narratives of War, 104.
9 Utility and Fame
The twenty-seventh of September, 1794: May, Charlton, 69.
We commit her body: The Book of Common Prayer (London, edition of 1794), 376.
Two brief biographies: Public Characters; ‘Biographical Anecdotes’.
‘distinguished’, ‘learned’, even ‘veteran’: Review of Hutton, Tracts (1812) in The Critical Review (January and February 1814), 1–13 and 109–123 at 1.
Hutton’s opinion about bridge-building projects: letter of Charles Hutton to R. Benson Esquire, 18 Jun 1792, Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, 105/164; letter of Charles Hutton to Robert Harrison, between Sep 1794 and Aug 1795, printed in Melmore, ‘Some Letters’, 79–80; letter of Charles Hutton to W. Rennie, 10 Feb 1802, National Archive, PRO 30/9/131, fos. 20–22; Charles Hutton, manuscript reply to queries about London Bridge, 18 Jun 1819, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles papers, letter 186/1; Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 1, pp. 127–44.
aimed not at fame: review of Hutton, Tracts (1812) in The Quarterly Review (1813), 400–18; Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 226.
an agreement with Joseph Johnson: University of Cincinnati MS Q121.H93 1786: Memorandum of agreement between Charles Hutton and Jos. Johnson, 20 May 1786.
fondness for French culture: Hutton, Tables (1785), 41; Hutton, Dictionary, vol. 1, v.
the article on algebra: Public Characters, vol. 2, p. 121; Trinity College Cambridge MS R.1.59, 64r–66r, 72r–74r (Hutton’s notes on mathematical books of the sixteenth century, and on the history of algebra); London, Senate House Library MS 235 (Hutton’s translation from Tartaglia).
biographies of ancient and modern mathematicians: ‘Memoir of the Late Dr. Hutton’, The Gentleman’s Magazine (March 1823), 228–32 at 228.
A letter from Nevil Maskelyne to Hutton: Nevil Maskelyne to Charles Hutton, 20 June 179[ ], Cambridge University Library, RGO 35/92 (photocopy).
Hutton mentioned for instance …: Hutton, Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 20, 67, 557; letter of John Playfair to Charles Hutton, 21 Apr 1788, Wellcome Collection MS 7430 no. 38; letter of Charles Hutton to Francis Baily, 13 Jul 1808, London, Senate House Library, [DeM] L.4 [Waring] (copy of Edward Waring, On the Principles of Translating Algebraic Quantities (Cambridge, 1792); letter pasted in at end).
‘Learned Societies throughout Europe’: Hutton, Dictionary, vol. 1, p. vi.
‘just got to the end’: Letter of Charles Hutton to Nevil Maskelyne, 19 Dec 1793, Cambridge University Library, RGO 4/187/18; letter of Charles Hutton to Robert Harrison, between Sep 1794 and Aug 1795, printed in Melmore, ‘Some Letters’, 79–80; Hutton, Dictionary, vol. 1, p. vi.
a very small typeface: letter of Charles Hutton to Robert Harrison, between Sep 1794 and Aug 1795, printed in Melmore, ‘Some Letters’, 79–80.
initially issued in separate numbers: advert for instance in St. James’s Chronicle, 24 January 1795.
a single-leaf puff: Proposals for Publishing a Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary [London, n.d.]; Cambridge University Library, White b.8, a copy of the Proposals pasted to a letter of Charles Hutton to David Stephenson, 7 February 1795.
a good deal of anticipation: letter of John Playfair to Charles Hutton, 25 Aug 1792, Wellcome Collection MS 5270 no. 44; letter of David Kinnebrook to his father, 23 Feb 1795, Cambridge University Library, RGO 35/106; advert for instance in St. James’s Chronicle, 4 February 1796.
‘smatterers and would-be scholars’: Review of Hutton, Dictionary in English Review 28 (July 1796), 14–19 at 18; David Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors of Great Britain (London, 1798), 300; Review of Margaret Bryan, A Compendious System of Astronomy (London, 1797) in The Monthly Visitor 8 (1799), 93–9 at 93.
‘of an equal and uniform nature’: Hutton, Dictionary, vol. 1, p. vii.
Charlotte … ruptured a vessel: Obituaries of Ch
arlotte Hutton in The Gentleman’s Magazine (October 1794), 960–61; in the Hibernian Magazine (1794), 477–8; ‘Hutton, Charlotte’ in Johnson and Exley, Imperial Encyclopaedia, vol. 3, 60–61.
‘gloomy remainder’: Charles Hutton to Robert Harrison, between Sep 1794 and Aug 1795, printed in Melmore, ‘Some Letters’, 79–80.
I dreamt that I was dead: Obituary of Charlotte Hutton in The Gentleman’s Magazine, 961.
David Kinnebrook: Letter of David Kinnebrook to his father, 23 Feb 1795, Cambridge University Library, RGO 35/106.
Henry had heard the truer word: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 2–3; Vignoles, Infant Ensign, 9–11; obituary of Henry Hutton in The Gentleman’s Magazine (December 1827), 561–2; Charles Hutton to Robert Harrison, 13 Aug 1795, printed in Melmore, ‘Some Letters’, 80–81.
‘I had them given a decent burial’: M. Courtois to Charles Hutton, 15 December 1794 (25 Frimaire, an 3), Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers 1072A/App. 10 (printed in Vignoles, Infant Ensign as appendix 10).
a section here and a section there: Hutton, Course of Mathematics, vol. 1, p. iii.
a hundred guineas: Jones, Records of the RMA, 46; also 51. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. misc. b. 190, fos. 1–2 – the articles of agreement between Charles Hutton and George and John Robinson for the publication of the Course – values a half share in the Course at £125.
Every cadet had to buy: Jones, Records of the RMA, 46.
‘Suppose 471 men are formed’: Hutton, Course, vol. 1, p. 20.
mixed reviews: Reviews of Hutton, Course in The Critical Review 25 (February 1799), 159–62 at 161; in The New London Review 4 (April 1799), 342–5 at 342.
he shall I name: Vibart, Addiscombe, 118, from a poem titled ‘Addiscombe: a tale of our times’ by J.H. Burke, printed in 1834.
he may have corresponded with Montucla: Jean E. Montucla and Joseph Jérôme L. de Lalande, Histoire des Mathématiques (Paris, 1799–1802), vol. 3, p. 108 and Niccolò Guicciardini, personal communication; Hutton’s interest in Newtoniana makes him probably the best candidate to be the correspondent mentioned. Hutton, Dictionary, vol. 2, p. 157; letter of Mark Noble to Rev. Mark Noble, 5 July 1809, Bodleian MS Eng. misc. d. 160, fos. 181–2.
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