Gunpowder and Geometry

by Benjamin Wardhaugh

  he had continental mathematics books: A Catalogue of the … Library of Charles Hutton, passim.

  some published translations: Guicciardini, Development, 108–13, 119; Florian Cajori, ‘Discussion of Fluxions: From Berkeley to Woodhouse’, The American Mathematical Monthly 24 (1917), 145–54; Leybourn, Mathematical Repository, new series (1799–1814) contained translations of works by Lagrange, Legendre and Euler by various authors. Alex D.D. Craik, ‘Mathematical Analysis and Physical Astronomy in Great Britain and Ireland, 1790–1831: some new light on the French connection’, Revue d’histoire des mathématiques 22 (2016), 223–94.

  perhaps constrained: Guicciardini, Development, 108.

  Laplace published: Crosland and Smith, ‘The Transmission of Physics’, 17; John Toplis, A Treatise Upon Analytical Mechanics; being the first book of the Mécanique céleste (Nottingham, 1814); Guicciardini, Development, 117; Jonathan R. Topham, ‘Science, Print, and Crossing Borders: importing French science books into Britain, 1789–1815’, in David N. Livingstone and Charles Withers (eds), Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science (Chicago, 2011), 311–44 at 326–8; also Playfair’s review cited above.

  During the last half century: Review of Toplis, Analytical Mechanics in Monthly Review 78 (October 1815), 211–13 at 211, 212.

  A man may be perfectly acquainted: [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 323–4; Guicciardini, Development, 102; Amy Ackerberg-Hastings, ‘John Playfair on British Decline in Mathematics’, BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics 23 (2008), 81–95.

  the short-lived Analytical Society: Warwick, Masters of Theory, 67–8; Philip C. Enros, ‘The Analytical Society (1812–1813): precursor of the renewal of Cambridge mathematics’, Historia Mathematica 10 (1983), 24–47; Guicciardini, Development, 135–6.

  much of their rhetoric: Elizabeth Garber, ‘On the Margins: experimental philosophy and mathematics in Britain, 1790–1830’ in The Language of Physics: the calculus and the development of theoretical physics in Europe, 1750–1914 (Boston, 1999), 169–206, at 191.

  British mathematics was now being transformed: Guicciardini, ‘Dot-Age’, 256; Crosland and Smith, ‘The Transmission of Physics’, 18, 59–60 and passim; Guicciardini, Development, 128–30, 138–9.

  Gregory himself was not wholly unsympathetic: Albree and Brown, ‘A Valuable Monument’, 26; but compare the view expressed in Hutton, Course (1836–7), vol. 2, p. 203.

  There was a period: O.J. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 9.

  Vignoles acquired a grounding: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 5; Gilbert Austin to Charles Hutton, 13 Aug 1806, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Correspondence, 1072A/O1.

  ‘too fond of a dash’: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 11.

  working through logarithmic and other tables: O.J. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 9.

  attempting to document the sums: Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers 1072A/App. 15 (administration of Charles Henry Vignoles, with an account of expenses), App. 13 (draft letter of Charles Hutton to W. Windham, 20 Feb 1797).

  rumours about grants of land: Letter of John Vignoles to Charles Hutton, 21 Oct 1814, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 75/1.

  He was placed under articles: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 6; letter of Margaret Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 3 Aug 1816, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 122.

  quite desperate for escape: Letter of Charles Blacker Vignoles to Mary Griffiths, 8 May 1814, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 65 (‘under the eye of such a Man’); also repeated references to ‘independence’ in later letters such as no. 138 (15 Jun 1817), no. 172 (17 May 1818), no. 261 (25 Mar 1823).

  an incident with a girl: O.J. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 31; K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 6.

  Vignoles left Bedford Row: Letter of Margaret Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 11 Aug 1814, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 72.

  private tuition from Leybourn: O.J. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 14; K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 7.

  Hutton wasn’t altogether happy: Mary Vignoles to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 15 Feb 1823, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 258.

  military adventures: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 9–12.

  Margaret was desperately worried: Letters of Margaret Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 11 Aug 1814, and of Charles Hutton Jr and Isabella Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 22 Aug and 28 Sep 1814, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letters 72 and 75.

  a manuscript tragedy: O.J. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 32, 43–4, 57 (quote); K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 6, 12.

  he was put on half pay: O.J. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 50; Anthony Hall-Patch, ‘Charles Blacker Vignoles, F.R.S.’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 47 (1993), 233–42 at 234.

  Henry’s son Charles: May, Charlton, 69; parish register for St Mary Magdalene, Canterbury, accessed via ancestry.co.uk (baptism on 8 January 1800).

  In August he wrote home proudly: Letters of Margaret Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 14 Mar 1814, and of Charles Hutton Jr and Isabella Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 22 Aug and 28 Sep 1814, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letters 38 and 75.

  he sickened of the life: Letters of Margaret Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 11 Aug and 21 Nov 1814, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letters 72 and 76/1 (quote); O.J. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 37.

  In October he was moved: Letter of Isabella Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 24 Mar 1815, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 80.

  his creative scientific work was over: A Catalogue of the Library … of Charles Hutton, title page; letter of Charles Hutton to John Bruce, 1815, extract printed in Bruce, Memoir, 32–3 (quote).

  the best in Britain: letter of Charles Hutton to John Bruce, 1815, extract printed in Bruce, Memoir, 32–3; A Catalogue of the Library … of Charles Hutton, passim; Public Characters, vol. 2, pp. 100–01, 103, 112.

  implacable: letter of Charles Hutton to John Bruce, 1815, extract printed in Bruce, Memoir, 32–3; [Gregory], ‘A Review’, 248.

  Isabella first worked through the library: New Haven, CT, Yale University, Lewis Walpole Library, LWL Mss Vol. 54 (2 vols), Catalogue of Charles Hutton’s library, 1816.

  greeted with horror: Bruce, Memoir, 32–3.

  twice the size of Playfair’s: Jungnickel and McCormmach, Cavendish, 323.

  Friends of Hutton acquired: Eric G. Forbes, ‘Collections II: the Crawford Collection of books and manuscripts on the history of astronomy, mathematics, etc., at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh’, The British Journal for the History of Science 6 (1973), 459–61 at 459–60; Bruce, Memoir, 33; Wallis, ‘Mathematical Tradition’, 11, 41.

  A London bookseller named Weale: A Catalogue of Books, on the Sciences: astronomy, mathematics, natural philosophy, &c. with some added that are curious and miscellaneous, chiefly from the libraries of Rev. Nevil Maskelyne … Bishop Horsley … Dr. Charles Hutton … William Phillips … and Richard Heber … On sale, by John Weale … 59, High Holborn, London [London, 1835] (originally issued with London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, series 3, no. 6 (April 1835)).

  mathematical instruments of Benjamin Franklin: A Catalogue of the Library … of Charles Hutton, 80.

  lamenting the sale: Letters of Charles Hutton to John Bruce, 8 May 1817 and 22 Mar 1822, printed in Bruce, Memoir, 33–4, 39–42.

  Margaret Hutton, too, sickened: Letters of Margaret Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 11 Aug 1814 and 13 Dec 1816, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letters 72 and 126; May, Charlton, 69.

  ‘Let it not be said’: Letter of Margaret Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 11 Aug 1814 and 13 Dec 1816, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignol
es Papers, Letter 72.

  ‘almost alone’: Letter of Charles Hutton to John Bruce, 8 May 1817, printed in Bruce, Memoir, 33–4.

  a cook and a maid: Letters of Isabella Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 29 Jul 1830 and 27 Dec 1830, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letters 498 and 514.

  An attractive ward: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 8.

  a voluminous clandestine correspondence: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 9; Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Correspondence, passim.

  a clandestine marriage: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 13; O.J. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 65.

  refused to have anything more: O.J. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 74–5; letters of Margaret Hutton and Mary Vignoles to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 13 Dec 1816 and 16 Jan 1818, and of Charles Blacker Vignoles to Mary Vignoles, 14 and 28 Nov 1820, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letters 126, 166, 200, 202.

  to work as a surveyor: Hall-Patch, ‘Charles Blacker Vignoles’, 234.

  Leybourn wrote a few months later: O.J. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 75. But relations later deteriorated again: letters of Mary Vignoles to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 16 Apr and 17 Jun 1822, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letters 225, 227.

  remaining steadily implacable: Letter of Mary Vignoles to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 1 Feb 1818, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 168.

  Isabella wrote covertly: Letter of Isabella Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 31 Jul 1817, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 153/1; letters 187 and 189 (Leybourn to C.B. Vignoles, 26 Apr and 13 Sep 1819) state that Hutton later forbade Isabella to write to Vignoles.

  Henry Hutton sided with his father: Hall-Patch, ‘Charles Blacker Vignoles’, 241; Letter of Charles Blacker Vignoles to Mary Vignoles, 3 Jun 1823, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 271.

  12 Peace

  Bedford Row, London. 21 September 1822: Tribute of Respect, 4.

  General Henry Hutton moved: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 221.

  Ellen was occasionally around: Letter of Margaret Hutton to Charles Blacker Vignoles, 11 Aug 1814, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Papers, Letter 72.

  ‘delighted’ by the society of his children: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 221.

  a ‘tottering scrawl’: Charles Hutton to Catherine Hutton, 26 Jan 1819, Wellcome Collection, MS 5270 no. 35.

  ‘Cousin’ Catherine kept Charles … supplied: Catherine Hutton, Reminiscences, 182–3.

  A portrait of Hutton in his later years: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 4.

  social evenings involved poetry and music: K.H. Vignoles, Charles Blacker Vignoles, 6.

  Hutton would make notes: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 221.

  a huge number of tradesmen: Horsley, Eighteenth-Century Newcastle, 50.

  Baily on the fixing of an astronomical instrument: Letters of Charles Hutton to Francis Baily, 17 Sep 1821, London, Senate House Library, MS 913B/3/3 (xv); and of Charles Hutton to John Bruce, 1 Jul 1814, printed in Bruce, Memoir, 27–9.

  such matters as the flow of the tide: Charles Hutton, manuscript reply to queries about London Bridge, 18 Jun 1819, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles papers, letter 186/1; London Metropolitan Archive, CLA/022/02/024: Reports to the Bridge House Estates Committee re state of London Bridge (appendices), 1821.

  Maskelyne … ‘did not publish much’: Hutton, Dictionary, (1815), vol. 2, pp. 22–3; John Heilbron, ‘A Mathematicians’ Mutiny with Morals’, in Paul Horwich (ed.), World Changes: Thomas Kuhn and the nature of science (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 81–129 at 97.

  ‘the tears trickling down his cheeks’: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 227.

  Gilbert Austin and his wife and nephew: Gilbert Austin to Charles Hutton, 13 Aug 1806, Portsmouth History Centre, Vignoles Correspondence, 1072A/O1; British Library, Add MSS 35071 (Vignoles Journals 1830–3; 1 Jan 1830 describing a visit to two ‘Children of my Grandfather’s Sisters’, Dr Austin and Mrs Charnley). I am most grateful to John Vignoles (personal communication) for further information.

  Hutton’s own brothers: Woodhorn Archive, SANT/BEQ/26/1/7/77 (notes of Thomas Wilson, 28 Mar 1822); St Bartholomew Bt, Longbenton, 20 December 1769 (burial), register accessed via www://freereg.org.uk.

  kept in touch with a number of friends: letters printed in Melmore, ‘Some Letters’ and Bruce, Memoir; A Catalogue of the … Library of Charles Hutton, passim.

  the Bruce brothers: letter of Charles Hutton to John Bruce, 1 Jul 1814, printed in Bruce, Memoir, 27–9; Wallis, ‘Mathematical Tradition’, 34.

  William Turner: Derek Orange, ‘Rational Dissent and Provincial Science: William Turner and the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society’, in Ian Inkster and Jack Morrell, Metropolis and Province: science in British culture, 1780–1850 (London, 1983), 202–25, esp. 211–13; ‘Newcastle, Hanover Square, Unitarian Chapel’, in ‘Sitelines: Tyne and Wear’s historic environment record’, http://www.twsitelines.info/smr/7688; Wallis, ‘Mathematical tradition’, 47.

  When the Lit and Phil decided: Letter of Charles Hutton to John Bruce, 22 Mar 1822, printed in Bruce, Memoir, 39–42; notice in The Morning Post (17 April 1822).

  one of the toasts: Report in The Newcastle Courant (7 September 1822).

  a visit to the scenes of his youth: Bruce, Memoir, 29, 32–3, 42–4 including letters of Charles Hutton to John Bruce, 15 Jan 1816 and 22 Mar and 20 Apr 1822.

  head of a learned world: Miller, ‘The Royal Society’, 9; Miller, ‘The Revival’, 109.

  a generation of mathematicians: Miller, ‘Sir Joseph Banks’, 289; Miller, ‘The Royal Society’, 108, 113–15.

  ‘petty but inextinguishable malignity’: [Gregory], ‘A Review’, 245.

  The astronomer William Herschel: Miller, ‘The Revival’, 110, citing a letter of Herschel to Babbage, 19 Dec 1820.

  Banks had vexed and opposed Maskelyne: Higgitt, Maskelyne, 233; [Gregory], ‘A Review’, 246–7.

  Banks had organised criticism: Olinthus Gregory, ‘Vindication of the Attack on Don Rodriguez’s Paper in the Philosophical Transactions’, Annals of Philosophy 3 (1814), 282–4 (and editorial comment at 285); Miller, ‘The Royal Society’, 135; [Gregory], ‘A Review’, 249.

  Banks remodelled the Board of Longitude: [Gregory], ‘A Review’, 246; William J. Ashworth, ‘The Calculating Eye: Baily, Herschel, Babbage and the business of astronomy’, The British Journal for the History of Science 27 (1994), 409–41 at 414.

  he opposed the formation: Miller, ‘Between Hostile Camps’, 18; [Gregory], ‘A Review’, 255; Ashworth, ‘The Calculating Eye’, 414; Gascoigne, Joseph Banks, 259.

  Society for the Improvement of Naval Architecture: [Gregory], ‘A Review’, 251–3; Miller, ‘Between Hostile Camps’, 7.

  ‘torturing the unseen and unknown’: Hutton, Dictionary, vol. 1, p. 458.

  mathematician Patrick Kelly and journalist William Nicholson: Miller, ‘The Royal Society’, 112; Ashworth, ‘The Calculating Eye’, 422; Watts, ‘We Want no Authors’, 405.

  ‘but an ambiguous honour’: Miller, ‘Between Hostile Camps’, 12, quoting a letter of Baily to Babbage, 11 November 1820, British Library, Add. MS 37182, fol. 291.

  papers rejected from the Transactions: [Gregory], ‘A review’, 248.

  Leybourn, of the Royal Military College: See Chapter 11.

  Babbage held testimonials: Charles Hutton, testimonial for Charles Babbage, 21 March 1816, British Library, Add. MS 37182, fos. 60–61; Miller, ‘The Royal Society’, 116–18.

  Hutton corresponded … with Waring: 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).

  The whole attainment: ‘Sir Joseph Banks’, New Times (14 July 1820), 4 (with a correction to the spelling).

  ‘notoriously fond of farming’: [Gregory], ‘A Review’, 166 and passim.

  W
illiam Wollaston: Miller, ‘The Royal Society’, 252; Trevor I. Williams, ‘Wollaston, William Hyde (1766–1828), chemist, physicist, and physiologist’ in ODNB.

  A small man with a piercing glance: David Knight, ‘Davy, Sir Humphry, baronet (1778–1829), chemist and inventor’ in ODNB; Fordyce, A History of Coal, 79; The History of the British Coal Industry, vol. 2, p. 139.

  he praised mathematics: Miller, ‘The Royal Society’, 253.

  ‘the [highest] efforts of human intelligence’: Royal Society, JBO/43, 150–51 (7 December 1820).

  He brought members of the Astronomical Society: Miller, ‘The Royal Society’, 256–8; Miller, ‘Between Hostile Camps’, 30–31.

  ‘There is certainly no branch of Science …’: Royal Society, JBO/43, 309–10 (30 November 1821).

  Hutton himself signed the nominations: Royal Society, JBO/43, 177, 342 (11 January, 20 December 1821).

  an assistant entrusted with them: Gregory, ‘Memoir’, 222; Leybourn, ‘Charles Hutton’, 195.

  an article in the French journal: P.S. de Laplace, ‘Sur la figure de la Terre, et la loi de la pesanteur à sa surface’, Connaissance des Tems (1821), 326–31 at 330; Letter of Charles Hutton to the Marquis de Laplace, 9 April 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; the Marquis de Laplace to Charles Hutton, 11 Sep 1820, printed (in English) in the Philosophical Magazine, ser. 1, 56 (November 1820), 321–2; P.S. de Laplace, ‘Sur la densité moyenne de la terre’, Journal de Physique, de chimie, et de l’Histoire Naturelle 91 (1821), 146–50, also printed in the Connaissance des tems pour l’an 1823 (Paris, 1820), 328–31, and in English in the Philosophical Magazine, ser. 1, no. 56 (November 1820), 322–6.

  recalculated Cavendish’s result: Charles Hutton, ‘On the Mean Density of the Earth’, Philosophical Transactions 111 (1821), 276–92 (reprinted in Philosophical Magazine 58/279 (1821), 3–13).

  ‘no name can be mentioned’: obituary of Hutton in the London Courier (February 1823).

  one man’s patronage had been withdrawn: [Gregory], ‘A Review’, 250.