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Home , Abraham Robertson, Edmond Halley, James Bradley, John Flamsteed, John Wallis, Nathaniel Bliss

Throughout the 18th century was central in the development of Newtonian philosophy. , the most famous English astronomer of his day, was Oxford’s Savilian Professor of . , Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, founded the . Oxford from Halley to Hornsby

Time-line

1656 Edmond Halley born in 1673 Halley enters The Queen’s College, Oxford 1676–78 Halley’s expedition to map the skies of the southern hemisphere 1678 Oxford University grants Halley his MA degree by Royal Mandamus 1687 Publication of ’s Principia Mathematica 1704 Halley appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry 1705 Halley publishes his cometary researches 1710 Halley’s edition of Apollonius’s Conics 1717 James Stirling’s book on Isaac Newton’s classification of cubics 1720 Halley appointed 1721 appointed Savilian Professor of 1742 Halley dies in and is appointed as his successor to the Savilian Chair 1763 Thomas Hornsby is appointed Savilian Professor of Astronomy 1764 Bliss dies and Joseph Betts is appointed as his successor 1766 Betts dies and John Smith is appointed as his successor 1782 Thomas Hornsby is appointed Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy 1797 Smith dies and is appointed as his successor The Radcliffe Observatory, built in the 1770s at the instigation of 1810 Hornsby dies and Robertson succeeds him as Savilian Professor Thomas Hornsby, was the first academic establishment in Europe of Astronomy to combine teaching and original research in astronomy. George Cooke succeeds Hornsby as Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy Oxford Mathematics from Halley to Hornsby Edmond Halley in Oxford

In 1704 Edmond Halley succeeded as Savilian Professor of Geometry and remained in post until his death in 1742.

Halley as an undergraduate Halley becomes Savilian Professor

Oxford had launched Halley’s English science, that he was able to career, but he was to hold no exercise those talents with which appointment in the University for a he was best endowed – research, further twenty-six years. Halley was administration and diplomacy. not attracted to routine teaching, Halley’s temperament and social and at this stage of his career he skills also played a strong role in would have found the University his success: he combined one of too narrow and provincial for the most original scientific minds his intellectual . It was of his with an astute social through his involvement with sense, an affable disposition, a the Royal Society, at the heart of strong constitution, a keen sense of metropolitan and international humour, and financial shrewdness.

Halley became a student at The Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1673

Even at the age of 17 Halley In 1676 the 20-year-old Halley astonished the University with his cut short his degree and sailed astronomical observations, made to St Helena (an island 16° south using a fine private collection of of the equator) with a set of instruments that incorporated such new instruments to map and technical innovations as telescopic explore the skies of the southern sights and micrometers. hemisphere. Halley was fascinated by the mysterious objects they Halley was soon collaborating with contained (such as nebulas and , the Astronomer clusters), which were not visible Royal, and making astronomical from European latitudes. observations at Oxford. Although he had left Oxford without taking his degree, this 7 and 8 in New College Lane were the residences of the disruption to his studies was Savilian professors from 1672 to 1854. Those who occupied one or other to secure him an international of these two houses included John Wallis, Edmond Halley (for whom reputation by the age of 22. When the University built the observatory on the roof of the left-hand house) his Catalogus Stellarum Australium and Thomas Hornsby. was published, following his return home in 1678, Halley’s reputation Many of the of research that ‘Mr Hally made his Inaugural Speech as an astronomer was made. The Halley had initiated were brought to on Wednesday May 24, which Royal Society elected him one of maturity after his return to Oxford very much pleased the Generality While still an undergraduate its youngest ever Fellows at the age as Savilian Professor of Geometry of the University. After some Halley published in the of 22, and Charles II commanded in 1704. Complements to the University, Royal Society’s Philosophical Oxford University to grant Halley he proceeded to the Original and Transactions his observations of his MA degree: this may be the Back in Oxford he set about Progress of Geometry, and gave an the occultation of by the first university degree conferred securing his academic reputation account of the most celebrated of the , made in Oxford in 1676 in explicit recognition of research within the University with a widely Ancient and Modern Geometricians. achievement. admired inaugural lecture: Of those of our English Nation he spoke in particular of Sir Henry Savil; but his greatest encomiums were upon Dr Wallis and Mr Newton, especially the latter, whom he styled his Numen etc.’ Oxford Mathematics from Halley to Hornsby Halley’s research activities

During his professorial years many of Halley’s longstanding research interests came to maturity.

Halley’s mathematics Halley’s science

Halley justified his appointment In the 17th century the Earth’s important and influential idea to the Savilian Chair of Geometry magnetic field was a topic of serious of using continuous lines to join by wisely adopting a suggestion study because of its importance points with the same value. This that he take up the preparation of to navigators. Halley developed a method of showing equal what would become the definitive theory to explain the variations in on a map subsequently entered edition of Apollonius’s Conics, the Earth’s magnetic field. into international usage, to show a task left unfinished by his contours, temperatures, depths, predecessor, John Wallis. Always His chart of magnetic variation and other cartographic and an astute judge of people and over the Atlantic introduced the geographical features. situations, Halley realised that a scholarly edition of such a major classical geometer would silence those critics who accused him of being a gadfly and an opportunist, and would secure him the respect of the academic establishment.

In 1570 Henry Savile’s course of lectures on ’s began with the story of Aristippus. Shipwrecked on the coast of Rhodes, Aristippus was assured of the inhabitants’ civilised nature when he discovered mathematical figures drawn in the sand. This classical reference provided an evocative image for the frontispiece to Halley’s 1710 edition of Apollonius’s Conics.

This 1705 book of tables indicates the cumulative contribution of Oxford to a Halley’s chart of magnetic variation major 17th-century development. In his dedicatory letter to Halley Halley’s concern with the public the compiler, Henry Sherwin, dissemination and understanding remarked on ‘It being universally of science can be seen from the acknowledged that by the eclipse observation that he Professors of Geometry in the Diagrams from Halley’s work organised while in Oxford. In 1715, Savilian Chair (viz. Mr Briggs, on the roots of cubic and quartic calculating that London would Dr Wallis, and Yourself) the equations, published in the experience its first total eclipse of logarithmical art hath received Royal Society’s Philosophical the Sun since 1140, he distributed its greatest improvements’. Transactions in 1687 maps all over to solicit observations of local eclipse conditions, as well as to reassure citizens that it was a natural event, portending no harm to the new monarch, King George I. Halley’s mass eclipse observation Oxford Mathematics from Halley to Hornsby Oxford’s Newtonian School

Throughout the 18th century Oxford became the centre for the development and promotion of Isaac Newton’s ideas.

Newtonianism in Oxford

In the 18th century a group of Around 1710 he was actively With Newton’s dynamical laws of Halley’s became his mathematicians and scientists lecturing on experimental gravitation at his disposal, Halley memorial when the comet duly at Oxford University actively philosophy in Oxford, and was began to apply himself seriously returned on Christmas Day 1758 developed and promoted the ideas appointed a lecturer at Hart to comets as astronomical bodies. in the predicted region of sky. contained in Newton’s Principia Hall (now Hertford College). While fitting observations of Mathematica. At a time when Desaguliers’s great talent lay recent comets to elliptical , This was much more than an Newton was working on his lunar in the effective popularisation he realised that the comet of 1682 interesting discovery: it was one of theory from London, it was in of Newtonian within might be the same as the bright one the most successful vindications of Oxford that his ideas were most the University, by means of that had been observed previously Newtonian theory, demonstrating actively fostered and disseminated. elaborate models and machines. in 1607, 1533, 1456, 1380 and 1305. the power of the new science to These were especially useful Taking account of the perturbations explain ancient hitherto mysterious One of the principal members of for communicating to non- of , he predicted that the phenomena, and showing them to this group of Oxford Newtonians mathematical audiences such comet would return in December be subject to the same predictable was John Theophilus Desaguliers abstract principles as waves 1758: here Halley was alerting laws as the Sun, Moon, and who was of Huguenot descent. or the of comets. future astronomers to an event that terrestrial bodies. he knew he would not live to see.

Halley published his cometary researches shortly after his appointment to the Savilian chair

Newtonian experimental philosophy – ‘to explain and prove experimentally what Sir Isaac Newton has demonstrated mathematically’ – was developed and promoted in 18th-century Oxford. Desaguliers’s Course of Experimental Philosophy gave several plausible The Old Ashmolean building (now the Museum of the demonstrations of Newton’s third law of , ) in Broad Street was used for lectures involving boats, magnets, tides and pendulums. in Newtonian science throughout the 18th century Oxford Mathematics from Halley to Hornsby The 18th century

The 18th century saw little original mathematical research at Oxford, although mathematical teaching was available as part of a liberal education.

James Stirling The Savilian Professors

The 18th century was not Oxford Lineae Tertii Ordinis Neutonianae, 18th-century Oxford has often University’s most creative research was published in Oxford. This been thought of as a period sunk in period, and nor did the teaching was a commentary on Newton’s decadence and academic slumber. there – or anywhere in England remarkable classification and The reasons for this diminution in – produce mathematicians who enumeration of cubic curves, an Oxford’s mathematical activity are equalled the best in continental impressive piece of work that most complex, but some responsibility Europe. contemporary mathematicians must be placed upon the professors. had failed to appreciate. In what In particular, the Savilian Chair of The late Stuart years saw the the Newton scholar D. T. Whiteside Geometry at the start of this period best that Oxford described as ‘the turning-point in was held by Edmond Halley, who managed to produce in the 18th contemporary appreciation of the later moved to Greenwich in 1720 century. James Stirling was a Scot essential accuracy and technical to take up the post of Astronomer who studied at Balliol College from accomplishment’ of Newton’s work, Royal. From then on he took This advertisement for the 1711 until about 1715, when he Stirling ‘produced the first proficient little interest in promoting non- mathematics lectures of Nathaniel lost his scholarship on refusing to exposition and percipient critique astronomical mathematics, or Bliss in mid-century disproves take the oath of allegiance to the of Newton’s tract, elaborating its indeed in teaching at Oxford. the more extreme of the charges new Hanoverian King George I presuppositions, [and] proving most that Oxford mathematics was in and never graduated. Nonetheless, of its undemonstrated theorems and Throughout these years the academic slumber he was recognised as the brightest arguments’. Newton subscribed for Savilian Chairs of Geometry and young mathematician around. two copies of this book, and offered Astronomy seem to have been It was not until Abraham Robertson’s financial help to aid Stirling later essentially interchangeable in terms election in 1797 that an active In 1717 Stirling’s first book, in his career. of qualification or inclination. mathematician once again filled The main interests of Halley’s the Savilian Chair of Geometry, successor, Nathaniel Bliss, lay also but he moved over to the Chair of in astronomy. Astronomy in 1810. His successor in the Chair of Geometry, Stephen Rigaud, was a major contributor to the flowering of Newtonian historical scholarship in the 1830s, by which time he too had moved over to the Chair of Astronomy.

Nathaniel Bliss

Bliss’s successor, the astronomer Joseph Betts, died in post after only one year. John Smith was then Savilian Professor of Geometry for over thirty years without being a In 1737 William Hogarth drew mathematician – he taught anatomy Oxford scholars attending a and chemistry – and without being lecture on Datur vacuum – few of in residence during the time he them show much interest in the spent as a physician in Cheltenham. lecture James Stirling’s brilliant book on Newton’s cubic curves was the last book on contemporary research mathematics to be published in Oxford during the 18th century Oxford Mathematics from Halley to Hornsby The Radcliffe Observatory

The Radcliffe Observatory was built in the 1770s at the instigation of Thomas Hornsby.

Thomas Hornsby The Radcliffe Observatory

James Bradley was probably Thomas Hornsby succeeded By the end of the 18th century the Radcliffe Observatory had Oxford’s greatest practical Bradley as Savilian Professor of become the best-equipped astronomical observatory in the world astronomical observer and Astronomy, and held the post from the embodiment of Oxford’s 1763 until his death in 1810 The £40,000 Trust bequeathed by stone building, with two wings Newtonian tradition. He was (Reproduced courtesy of Green Dr John Radcliffe in 1714 flanking a magnificent central Savilian Professor of Astronomy Templeton College, Oxford) had already provided Oxford tower modelled on the Tower of the from 1721 until his death in 1762. University with a scientific library Winds in . Thomas Hornsby (the ) and an commissioned the Observatory’s When James Bradley died in 1762, this end he petitioned the , and the Trustees instruments from John Bird, Thomas Hornsby of Corpus Christi Trustees in 1768. Part of his considered the provision of an the greatest instrument maker College was elected to succeed him petition was a request for facilities astronomical observatory to of the age. to the Savilian Chair of Astronomy. where he might ‘read a course of be well within the spirit of the Twenty years later he also occupied lectures in Practical [observational] bequest. Land was acquired to In 1979 the Radcliffe Observatory the Sedleian Chair of Natural Astronomy; which I was the rather the north-west of the city from was incorporated into what is now Philosophy. Hornsby formed a disposed to undertake as it had St John’s College, so that the Green Templeton College. More natural successor to Bradley, for never been publicly attempted at observatory and its spacious recently, the Radcliffe Infirmary he was an energetic teacher of any University’. grounds stood next door to the site has been redeveloped and the astronomy and physics in the Radcliffe Infirmary along what is Observatory building is adjacent University. now the Woodstock Road. Plans to Oxford’s new Mathematical were drawn up for an elegant Institute. By the middle of the 18th century, astronomy had become the most expensive of the sciences, and a serious astronomer needed hundreds of pounds at his disposal to acquire the instruments necessary to pursue fundamental research. Hornsby recognised that to advance astronomical studies at Oxford, the University needed a major observatory equipped with a full set of instruments, and to A notice of Hornsby’s lectures

John Bird in 1776, at around The Merz–Repsold heliometer the time that he constructed equipped the Radcliffe Observatory instruments for the Radcliffe for high-precision astrometric Observatory observations in the mid-19th century

These posters were conceived by Raymond Flood and Robin Wilson, with help from Dyrol Lumbard. The text is based on writings by Allan Chapman and the late John Fauvel.