the impossibility of determining: Charles Hutton, Recreations in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy (4 vols: London, 1803), vol. 4, p. 47.
a project cooked up in collusion: Review of Hutton, Dictionary in English Review 28 (July 1796), 14–19 at 18.
Select Amusements in Philosophy and Mathematics: M.L. Despiau, Select Amusements in Philosophy and Mathematics (London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1801); obituaries of Hutton in The European Magazine (June 1823), 483–7 at 487; in the Literary Gazette (1 February 1823), 75–6 at 75.
‘warm commendation’: Review of Hutton, Recreations in The British Critic 21 (May 1803), 542–51 at 551.
‘well adapted to lie’: Review of Hutton, Recreations in Monthly Review 44 (May 1804), 35–40 at 40.
‘The whole work indeed reflects much credit’: Review of Hutton, Recreations (1814 edition) in The British Critic 63 (April 1815), 409–18 at 418.
‘insipid and puerile’: Review of Hutton, Recreations in The Imperial Review 4 (January and February 1805), 3–12 and 155–166, at 4.
some were scarcely to be had: Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vol. 1, pp. v–vi.
An attempt was announced in 1802: Prospectus of an Abridgment of the Philosophical Transactions (London, Bunney and Gold, 1802) (two copies in the John Johnson collection of printed ephemera).
a short prospectus: Prospectus of a New Abridgement of the Philosophical Transactions (London, 1803); Prospectus of the New Abridgement of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (two forms: London, 1806) (copies in the John Johnson collection of printed ephemera); advert (separately paginated) in The Gentleman’s Magazine (May 1809).
the Abridgement was under Hutton’s principal care: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 216; obituary of Hutton in The Edinburgh Annual Register 16 (December 1823), 328–31 at 330.
that colossal figure: for comparison, the assignments of copyright in Original Letters, Manuscripts, and State Papers, Collected by William Upcott ([London] 1836), 50, show prices ranging from £284 for a half share in Hutton’s Mensuration, Arithmetic and Diarian Repository and £105 for the Logarithms, down to £31 for the Key to Hutton’s Arithmetic.
Annotations on papers: Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vol. 14, p. 420 (Hutton on the density of the earth); vol. 14, p. 551 (Ingenhousz on inflammable air and gunpowder); vol. 15, pp. 102, 103, 107 (Thompson on gunpowder); vol. 18, 142–177 (Cavendish on the density of the earth).
a subject classification: Review of Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged vols 1 and 2 in Literary Journal (1804), 259–62 at 261–2; Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vol. 3, pp. v–xiii; Maurice Crosland and Crosbie Smith, ‘The Transmission of Physics from France to Britain: 1800–1840’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 9 (1978), 1–61 at 4.
Hutton wrote to Banks: Royal Society, CMO/8, 218 (council meeting of 31 March 1803).
to dedicate the work: Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vol. 1, [A]2r.
a planned supplementary volume: Prospectus of the New Abridgement (1806: longer form), 3; Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vol. 1, p. 319.
criticisms from The Monthly: Review of Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vols 1–3 in Monthly Review (1805), 284–6 (quote 286).
The British Critic: Review of Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vol. 1 in The British Critic (1803), 538–44 at 544; Review of Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vols 1–2 in the Literary Journal (1804), 259–62 at 259; notice of Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vols 1–4 in Thomas Leybourn, Mathematical Repository, new series, vol. 1 (1799), 135; quotation from the Journal de la littérature étrangère 1 (An 13), 37 in Prospectus of the New Abridgement (1806: longer form), 4.
10 Securing a Legacy
Mount Schiehallion: John Playfair, ‘Account of a Lithological Survey of Schehallien, made in order to determine the specific gravity of the rocks which compose that mountain’, Philosophical Transactions 101 (1811), 347–77 at 348–55.
The Academy at last moved: Shepperd, Sandhurst, 33.
The Cube House was purchased: Jones, Records of the RMA, 55.
an unexpected embarrassment: Charles Hutton, ‘Note on the Divining Rod’, Philosophical Magazine 55 (June 1820), 465–8 at 467; Saint and Guillery, ‘Woolwich Common’, 25.
he was granted permission: Jones, Records of the RMA, 57.
His new town house: Letter of Charles Hutton to Messrs Kent, 16 Nov?1807, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Montagu d. 7, fol. 562 (Hutton’s first extant letter addressed from 34 Bedford Row).
a small fortune: Letter of Charles Blacker Vignoles to Mary Vignoles, 9 Jul 1823, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, letter 286.
two pianos: Letters of Charles Blacker Vignoles to Mary Vignoles, 28 Jun and 4 Aug 1823, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, letters 282 and 295.
raise subscriptions and build a new theatre: Notice of subscription for a new theatre in Statesman (1 November 1809).
the official table: Hutton, Dictionary, vol. 2, p. 728.
often asked to recommend mathematicians: Bruce, Memoir, 37; Tribute of Respect to Charles Hutton, LL.D. F.R.S. &c. &c. [London, 1822], 2.
Lewis Evans: Correspondence of Lewis Evans and Charles Hutton, Oxford, Museum of the History of Science, MSS Evans 31; Jones, Records of the RMA, 49.
David Kinnebrook: letters of David Kinnebrook to his father, 23 Feb and 29 Oct 1795, Cambridge University Library RGO 35/106 and 35/115; Croarken, ‘Longitude for All’, 119; Croarken, ‘Astronomical Labourers’, 289.
Charles Wildbore: Letter of Charles Hutton to Robert Harrison, 31 May 1780, printed in Melmore, ‘Some Letters’, 77–8.
Edward Riddle: Bruce, Memoir, 37; Sykes, Local Records (1867), 288–9.
John Bonnycastle: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 226; Jones, Records of the RMA, iii, iv, 36, 42, 44, 49, 51, 56, 82.
Margaret Bryan: Margaret Bryan, A Compendious System of Astronomy (London, 1797), x–xi.
Major Edward Williams and Lieutenant William Mudge: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 226; W.A. Seymour and J.H. Andrews, A History of the Ordnance Survey (Folkestone, 1980) 12, 15; C.F. Close, The Early Years of the Ordnance Survey (London, 1926), 30.
Sir John Leslie: Letters of Sir John Leslie to Charles Hutton, 14 Oct 1795, and of Charles Hutton to Joseph McCormack,?19 Oct 1795, London, Senate House Library, MS 913B/3/1 (xv: letter and draft reply); also of Charles Hutton to Edinburgh Town Council, 19 Feb 1805, Edinburgh City Archives, SL1/1/142: Town Council Minutes vol. 142, pp. 139–141 (copy); see J.B. Morrell, ‘The Leslie Affair: careers, kirk and politics in Edinburgh in 1805’, The Scottish Historical Review 54 (1975), 63–82 at 77.
Charles Babbage: Note on the mathematical chair at Edinburgh, Caledonian Mercury (2 September 1819); Charles Hutton, testimonial for Charles Babbage, 21 March 1816, British Library, Add. MS 37182, fos. 60–61.
‘serving and encouraging’: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 226–7, quoting from Hutton’s (now lost) manuscript journal for 1821.
a quite extraordinary fracas: Letters of Lewis Evans and of the Trustees of the Grammar School at Hungerford to Charles Hutton, 29 Sep 1788, Oxford, Museum of History of Science, MS Evans 31 (drafts).
Olinthus Gregory: Alexander Gordon, rev. Ben Marsden, ‘Gregory, Olinthus Gilbert (1774–1841), mathematician’ in ODNB.
When Charles Wildbore died: Albree and Brown, ‘A Valuable Monument’, 26. Despite my assertions in Poor Robin’s Prophecies: a curious Almanac, and the everyday mathematics of Georgian Britain (Oxford, 2012), close examination of the evidence makes it seem that the editorship of Old Poor Robin remained linked to that of the Gentleman’s Diary, for which Hutton twice recommended candidates but which he never held himself.
second assistant mathematics master: Jones, Records of the RMA, iv, 53, 55, 82.
work with ballistic pendulums: Essay review including Hutton, Tracts (1812), in The Brit
ish Review 20 (1822), 283–300, at 287, 291; Douglas, Naval Gunnery, 28, 39, 92.
Gregory took on both: Gordon, ‘Gregory’.
‘liberal encouragement of the Public’: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 1, p. x.
‘held in high estimation’: Obituary of Hutton in The Edinburgh Annual Register 16 (December 1823), 328–31, at 328.
‘an inaccurate transcript’: Letter of Lewis Evans to Charles Hutton, 26 May 1789, Oxford, Museum of the History of Science, MS Evans 31: draft.
His Course was adopted: V. Frederick Rickey and Amy Shell-Gellasch, ‘Mathematics Education at West Point: the first hundred years – Charles Hutton’: http://www.maa.org/publications/periodicals/convergence/mathematics-education-at-west-point-the-first-hundred-years-charles-hutton; Frank J. Swetz, ‘The Mystery of Robert Adrain’, Mathematics Magazine 81 (2008), 332–44 at 340; Hutton, Course (New York, 1812), xi.
West Point also had a copy: Catalogue of Books in the Library of the Military Academy (United States Military Academy, 1822), 17.
an unknown translator: Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan, Mich. Ms. 276 (UF 144.H49), ‘Expériences de pyrotechnie d’Hutton’, a French translation of Hutton’s ‘New Experiments in Artillery …’ from Tracts (1786), dated 1791 or 1792; attribution in later endorsement on first leaf (‘traduction privée inédite faite à la demand du chimiste Guyton de Morveau’).
Joseph-Louis Lagrange was working: Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, ‘Notes’, appended to J.B.J. Delambre, ‘Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Malus, et de M. le Comte Lagrange’, Mémoires de la classe des sciences mathématiques et physiques de l’institut impérial de France. Année 1812. Première partie (Paris, 1814), lxxviii–lxxx, at lxxix; obituary of Hutton in Monthly Magazine 55 (March 1823), 137–42 at 139.
a French colonel named Villantroys: Charles Hutton, Nouvelles expériences d’artillerie, tr. Pierre-Laurent de Villantroys (Paris, 1802).
Charles Dupin included an illustration: Essay review including Hutton, Tracts (1812), in The British Review 20 (1822), 283–300 at 287–8, 298.
A French reviewer: J. Madelaine, review of Hutton, Nouvelles expériences d’artillerie in Journal des sciences militaires 5 (1826), 350–79 at 354.
Alexander Ingram in 1796: Charles Hutton, A Complete Treatise on Practical Arithmetic … A new edition, corrected and enlarged, by Alexander Ingram (London, 1796); Daniel Dowling, Key to the Course of Mathematics, composed … by Charles Hutton (London, 1818); J.M. Edney, A Key to Hutton’s Compendious Measurer (London, 1824).
the Course in particular functioning: Jenny Bulstrode, ‘The Promiscuous Exercises of the Woolwich Bois Boys’, paper given at All Souls College, Oxford, December 2015.
‘Any hints of improvements’: Hutton, Key (1786), [A]2v.
Diary contributors, in particular: Letter of Lewis Evans to Charles Hutton, 29 Sep 1788, Oxford, Museum of the History of Science, MS Evans 31 (draft); letter of Charles Hutton to Robert Harrison, 13 Aug 1795, printed in Melmore, ‘Some Letters’, 80–81; review of Hutton, Mensuration (1788) in The Critical Review 67 (March 1789), 207–10 at 207.
a long and eccentric correspondence: Letters of Lady M. to Charles Hutton, 10 Feb, 30 Apr and 23 May 1805, and 30 Oct 1813, Hutton, Recreations (1814), vol. 4, pp. 223–9, 231; ‘The Divining Rod’, Newcastle Magazine 2 (January 1823), 48–50; letter to the editor in the Monthly Magazine (July 1820), 515–17.
a third volume of the Course: Hutton, Course (1811 edition), vol. 3, pp. iii–iv.
‘may best be used in tuition’: Hutton, Course (1811 edition), vol. 3, p. viii.
Cavendish’s was a beautiful experiment: Henry Cavendish, ‘Experiments to Determine the Density of the Earth’, Philosophical Transactions 88 (1798), 469–526.
Hutton never accepted Cavendish’s result: Letter of Charles Hutton to Henry Cavendish, 17 Nov 1798, Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth: Cavendish MSS New Correspondence, printed in Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach, Cavendish: the experimental life (2nd edn, s.l., 1999), 710–11; Letter of Charles Hutton to the Marquis de Laplace, 9 Apr 1819, printed in the Philosophical Magazine ser. 1, 55 (February 1820), 81–5 and (in French) in the Journal de Physique, de chimie, et de l’Histoire Naturelle 90 (April 1820), 307–12.
In 1778 he had assumed: Hutton, ‘Account of the Calculations’, 782; Charles Hutton, ‘Calculations to Determine at What Point in the Side of a Hill its Attraction will be the Greatest’, Philosophical Transactions 70 (1779), 1–14; Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vol. 14, p. 420; Hutton, Dictionary (1815), vol. 1, p. 403.
in 1801 Playfair carried out: Playfair, ‘Account of a Lithological Survey’; Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 2, p. 63.
‘greater than can easily be imagined’: Reviews of Hutton, Tracts (1812) in The Edinburgh Review 22 (October 1813), 88–107 at 96; and in The Quarterly Review 9 (July 1813), 400–18 at 407.
trigonometric tables in radians: Charles Hutton, ‘Project for a New Division of the Quadrant’, Philosophical Transactions 74 (1784), 21–34; Hutton, Tables (1785), x (text retained in the edition of 1794 though not in those of 1801 and subsequently), 2–3; letter of Lewis Evans to Charles Hutton, 26 May 1789, Oxford, Museum of the History of Science, MSS Evans 31; Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 2, p. 133; Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 213.
the Royal Society’s librarian: Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R.1.59, fos. 54–63; see also Hutton, Tracts (1812), 115–26.
selections and abridgements: Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R.1.59, fos. 179–217 (quote fol. 179r), a mixture of material from Hutton and Gregory.
a book-length translation: London: Senate House Library, MS 235 (translation from Niccolò Tartaglia, Quesiti, et inuentioni diverse (Venice, 1546), book 9).
a few new results: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 1, pp. 260–65; vol. 2, pp. 122–40.
new material on the history of algebra: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 2, pp. 151–64, 195–201; Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R.1.59, fos. 124–153; see also Ivahn Smadja, ‘On Two Conjectures that Shaped the Historiography of Indeterminate Analysis: Strachey and Chasles on Sanskrit sources’, Historia Mathematica 43 (2016), 241–87.
a history of iron bridges: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 1, pp. 144–66.
the final account of the work on ballistics: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 2, pp. 306–84 and vol. 3.
a final legacy: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 1, pp. iii, x.
to modify some of his judgements: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 2, pp. 13, 38; within the paper on the density of the earth credits to Maskelyne and Cavendish were removed. See above on Hutton’s alteration of the concluding result in this paper.
compiled and ready by July 1812: Hutton, Tracts (1812), vol. 1, p. x; vol. 2, pp. 166–93 (the EIC librarian at 167).
some long and prominent notices: Reviews of Hutton, Tracts (1812) in The Quarterly Review 9 (July 1813), 400–18; The Edinburgh Review 22 (October 1813), 88–107 (quote p. 88; Playfair identified as author in The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, wellesley.chadwyck.com); The Critical Review 5 (January, February and April 1814), 1–13, 109–23 and 374–81; The New Annual Register (January 1814), 317–29; The British Review 20 (December 1822), 283–300.
11 Controversies Old and New
Till within the last year: letter of Charles Blacker Vignoles to Mary Griffiths, 8 May 1814, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 65 (appendix).
‘disgraceful management’: Saint, Four Letters, iv, 7.
A profusion of new orders: Saint, Four Letters, 17, 63–5; Jones, Records of the RMA, 57–61.
nearly two hundred cadets: Saint, Four Letters, 59–60.
indulging in games: Saint, Four Letters, 78, 28.
Hutton’s Course remained the foundation: Jones, Records of the RMA, 60, 69, 82, 96, 102 (use of Hutton’s Course discontinued at the RMA in 1840).
A distinctly mixed review: review of Hutton, Dictionary in Monthly Review 25 (February and April 1798), 184–201 and 364–83, at 190.
a frankly rude one-page notice: Review of Hutton, Bridges (1801) in Monthly Review 37 (March 1802), 323–4 at 324.
Robert Woodhouse: B.C. Nangle, The Monthly Review, Second Series, 1790–1815: indexes of contributors and articles (Oxford, 1955), vol. 2, p. 74; letter of Charles Hutton to W. Windham, 15 Sep 1802, British Library, Add. MS 37915, fol. 218–19.
Hutton wrote in some wrath: Letter of Charles Hutton to Ralph Griffiths, 1 May 1802, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Add. C. 89, fol. 167 (this is the third letter in the sequence, Hutton’s first and Griffiths’s reply being lost).
a short essay on the ‘abuse of reviews’: Charles Hutton, ‘To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine’, Monthly Magazine (August 1802), 27–31.
a shorter piece in the Monthly Review: Charles Hutton, ‘To the Editor of the Monthly Review’, Monthly Review 38 (June 1802), 222–4.
lukewarm reviews: Reviews of Hutton, Recreations in Monthly Review 44 (May 1804), 35–40; and of Hutton et al., Philosophical Transactions Abridged in Monthly Review 47 (July 1805), 284–6 (quote at 286).
‘a general propensity’: Letter of Charles Hutton to Ralph Griffiths, 1 May 1802, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Add. C. 89, fol. 167.
the distinctive British methods: Niccolò Guicciardini, ‘Dot-Age: Newton’s mathematical legacy in the eighteenth century’, Early Science and Medicine 9 (2004), 218–56; R.E. Schofield, ‘An evolutionary taxonomy of eighteenth-century Newtonianisms’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 7 (1978), 175–92; Guicciardini, Development.
‘A certain degree’: [John Playfair], review of P.S. Laplace, Traité de mécanique céleste, vols 1–4 (Paris, 1799–1805) in Edinburgh Review 11 (January 1808), 248–84 at 282.
‘By means of such problems’: Hutton, Miscellanea Mathematica, 1.
France, and the European continent: Crosland and Smith, ‘The Transmission of Physics’, 6–7; Guicciardini, Development, 141; Guicciardini, ‘Dot-Age’, 253–5.
Gunpowder and Geometry Page 28