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‘Greenwich near London’: the Royal Observatory and its London networks in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2019

REBEKAH HIGGITT
REBEKAH HIGGITT*
Affiliation:
School of History, Rutherford College, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NX, UK. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Built in Greenwich in 1675–1676, the Royal Observatory was situated outside the capital but was deeply enmeshed within its knowledge networks and communities of practice. Scholars have tended to focus on the links cultivated by the Astronomers Royal within scholarly communities in England and Europe but the observatory was also deeply reliant on and engaged with London's institutions and practical mathematical community. It was a royal foundation, situated within one government board, taking a leading role on another, and overseen by Visitors selected by the Royal Society of London. These links helped develop institutional continuity, while instrument-makers, assistants and other collaborators, who were often active in the city as mathematical authors and teachers, formed an extended community with interest in the observatory's continued existence. After outlining the often highly contingent institutional and personal connections that shaped and supported the observatory, this article considers the role of two early assistants, James Hodgson and Thomas Weston. By championing John Flamsteed's legacy and sharing observatory knowledge and practice beyond its walls, they ensured awareness of and potential users for its outputs. They and their successors helped to develop a particular, and ultimately influential, approach to astronomical and mathematical practice and teaching.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 52 , Special Issue 2: London 1600–1800: Communities of Natural Knowledge and Artificial Practice , June 2019 , pp. 297 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2019 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Charlotte Sleigh, Jim Bennett, Noah Moxham and Jasmine Kilburn-Toppin for their advice and suggestions. These, together with the comments of the referees, have been helpful in revising and improving this article.

References

1 The standard history remains Forbes, Eric G., Meadows, A.J. and Howse, Derek, Greenwich Observatory: The Story of Britain's Oldest Scientific Institution, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and Herstmonceux, 1675–1975, 3 vols., London: Taylor & Francis, 1975Google Scholar; but see also Graham Dolan, The Royal Observatory Greenwich, 2014–2018, at www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php, accessed 10 August 2018.

2 Christopher Wren, the king's surveyor of works, 3 December 1681, quoted in Willmoth, Frances, ‘Introduction: the king's “astronomical observator”,’ in Willmoth, Frances (ed.), Flamsteed's Stars: New Perspectives on the Life and Work of the First Astronomer Royal, 1646–1719, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997, pp. 1–16, 4Google Scholar.

3 16 March 1668/1669, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, at www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1669/03/16. Another version is Hendrick Danckerts, ‘View of Greenwich and the Queen's House from the south-east’, c.1670, National Maritime Museum, BHC1818, at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/13298.html, accessed 10 August 2018.

4 See especially Jim Bennett, ‘Flamsteed's career in astronomy: nobility, morality and public utility’, in Willmoth, op. cit. (2), pp. 17–30; and Rob Iliffe, ‘Mathematical characters: Flamsteed and Christ's Hospital Mathematical School’, in ibid., pp. 115–144.

5 Mordechai Feingold, ‘Astronomy and strife: John Flamsteed and the Royal Society’, in Willmoth, op. cit. (2), pp. 31–48, 37–38.

6 Copies of the warrants from the National Archives have been transcribed at Dolan, op. cit. (1), at www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php?article=977 and www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php?article=976, accessed 8 August 2018.

7 Flamsteed enquired whether one was needed on Queen Anne's accession: Flamsteed to James Craggs, chief clerk to the master of the Ordnance, 23 December 1703, Letter 923, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed the First Astronomer Royal (ed. Forbes, Eric G., Murdin, Lesley and Willmoth, Frances), 3 vols., Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing, 1995–2002, vol. 3, p. 49Google Scholar. The Board of Visitors’ warrants were renewed on the accession of a new monarch from at least 1765.

8 On the various roles that Flamsteed could inhabit, see Bennett, op. cit. (4); and Frances Willmoth, ‘Models for the practice of astronomy: Flamsteed, Horrocks and Tycho’, in Willmoth, op. cit. (2), pp. 49–75.

9 Willmoth, Frances, ‘Mathematical sciences and military technology: the Ordnance Office in the reign of Charles II’, in Field, J.V. and James, Frank A.J.L. (eds.), Renaissance and Revolution: Humanists, Scholars, Craftsmen and Natural Philosopher in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 117–131, 117Google Scholar.

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11 Robert Hooke's Diary, p. 151, quoted in Willmoth, op. cit. (9), p. 180.

12 On Moore's patronage see Philip Beeley's article in this special issue.

13 See Willmoth, op. cit. (2); and Johns, Adrian, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998, pp. 543–611CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 The living was worth £150 p.a., although part of this paid for a curate. See Ian G. Stewart, ‘“Professor” John Flamsteed’, in Willmoth, op. cit. (2), pp. 145–166, 153.

15 On the ups and downs of Flamsteed's relationship with the society see Feingold, op. cit. (5).

16 A copy of this warrant is in Newton's papers at Cambridge University Library, MS Add.4006, at https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-04006/59, accessed 8 August 2018. See Laurie, P.S., ‘The Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory, I: 1710–1830’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1966) 7, pp. 169–185Google Scholar.

17 Laurie, op. cit. (16), pp. 173–174.

18 Thomas Chicheley, master general of the Ordnance, 28 January 1675/1676, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 1, p. 909.

19 Flamsteed, ‘The State of the Observatory’, 1700, published in Baily, Francis, An Account of the Revd John Flamsteed, the First Astronomer Royal, London: printed by William Clowes and Sons by order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 1835, p. 190Google Scholar.

20 Copy of the royal appointment of Edmond Halley, 9 February 1720/1721, Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives, Cambridge University Library, RGO 4/302/5 (subsequently RGO).

21 Dunn, Richard and Higgitt, Rebekah, Finding Longitude: How Ships, Clocks and Stars Helped Solve the Longitude Problem, Glasgow: Collins, 2014Google Scholar; Howse, Derek, Nevil Maskelyne: The Seaman's Astronomer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989Google Scholar; Higgitt, Rebekah (ed.), Maskelyne: Astronomer Royal, London: Hale Books, 2014Google Scholar.

22 Copies of the appointments of the Astronomers Royal, RGO 4/203/1–8; ‘Pay of the Astronomers Royal & directors’, in Dolan, op. cit. (1), at www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php?article=940, accessed 8 August 2018.

23 ‘Regulations for the execution of the office of Astronomer Royal’, RGO 4/301; Howse, op. cit. (21), pp. 44, 55–56, 60.

24 Howse, op. cit. (21), pp. 106–108, 121–122, 180–182.

25 See Rebekah Higgitt, ‘Managing, communicating and judging longitude after Harrison, 1774–c.1800’, in Alexi Baker et al., The Board of Longitude, 1714–1828 (Palgrave, forthcoming).

26 See the collection in RGO 4/301-108.

27 Gascoigne, John, ‘The Royal Society and the emergence of science as an instrument of state policy’, BJHS (1999) 32, pp. 171–184CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

28 Crosthwait to Sharp, 1 June 1721 and 8 August 1728, in Baily, op. cit. (19), pp. 314, 362.

29 Alan Cook, ‘Edmond Halley and John Flamsteed at the Royal Observatory’, in Willmoth, op. cit. (2), pp. 167–187, 187; Cook, , Edmond Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, pp. 377–395Google Scholar.

30 Dolan, op. cit. (1), at www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php?article=999, accessed 21 August 2019.

31 Crosthwait to Sharp, 10 February 1723/1724, in Baily, op. cit. (19), p. 356; Anita McConnell, ‘Pound, James (1669–1724)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), at www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22637, accessed 21 August 2018.

32 Bradley, James, Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence (ed. Rigaud, S.P.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1832, p. liiGoogle Scholar.

33 Dunn and Higgitt, op. cit. (21), Chapters 3–4; Higgitt, Rebekah, ‘Equipping expeditionary astronomers: Nevil Maskelyne and the development of “precision exploration”,’ in MacDonald, Fraser and Withers, C.W.J. (eds.), Geography, Technology and Instruments of Exploration, Farnham: Ashgate, 2015, pp. 15–36, 19–23Google Scholar.

34 Higgitt, op. cit. (33) pp. 24–32.

35 Howse, Derek, Greenwich Observatory, vol. 3: The Buildings and Instruments, London: Taylor & Francis, 1975, pp. 75–76, 17, 110, 19Google Scholar. See also Willmoth, op. cit. (10), pp. 186–190.

36 Bennett, J.A., ‘The English quadrant in Europe: instruments and the growth of consensus in practical astronomy’, Journal for the History of Astronomy (1992), 23, pp. 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 The observatory appeared on a trade card used by Bleuler, 1791–1822, and John Field, 1791–1793 (Science Museum Inv: 1934-122/7 and 1951-685/32). Both had been apprentices of Edward Nairne, a frequent supplier of instruments to such expeditions.

38 Unless otherwise indicated, the following information is from ‘Assistant grades’, in Dolan, op. cit. (1), at www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php?article=999, accessed 9 August 2018, and linked biographies.

39 Flamsteed to Sharp, 24 March 1708/1709, in Baily, op. cit. (19), p. 270.

40 Willmoth, Frances, ‘Sharp, Abraham (bap. 1653, d. 1742)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011Google Scholar, at www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25206, accessed 9 August 2018; Willmoth, , ‘“The ingenious and unwearied Mr Abraham Sharp”: a transitional figure in the making of precision instruments’, in Taub, Liba and Willmoth, Frances (eds.), The Whipple Museum of the History of Science: Instruments and Interpretations, to Celebrate the Sixtieth Anniversary of R.S. Whipple's Gift to the University of Cambridge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 427–466Google Scholar; ‘A list of my pupils Names & Employments …’, RGO 1/15, f. 165v–166v.

41 On Hodgson see Stewart, Larry, ‘Other centres of calculation, or, where the Royal Society didn't count: commerce, coffee-houses and natural philosophy in early modern London’, BJHS (1999) 32, pp. 133–153CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and Stewart, , The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660–1750, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 111–116Google Scholar.

42 Croarken, Mary, ‘Astronomical labourers: Maskelyne's assistants at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 1765–1811’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London (2003) 57, pp. 285–298CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Higgitt, op. cit. (33), pp. 15–36.

43 Iliffe, op. cit. (4); Stewart, op. cit. (14).

44 RGO 1/15, f. 165v–166v.

45 RGO 1/15, f. 165v–166v. On Bridges see Historical Register (April 1737) 22, p. 256.

46 The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 2, p. 852; draft petition to Queen Anne, 29 Deember 1710, in ibid., vol. 3, p. 576.

47 On Flamsteed and the RMS see Iliffe, op. cit. (4).

48 Thornhill, James, An Explanation of the Painting in the Royal Hospital at Greenwich [London, 1726], p. 10Google Scholar (facsimile, Old Royal Naval College, 2017).

49 Kim Sloan, ‘The teaching of non-professional artists in eighteenth-century England’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1986, p. 75; Sloan, , ‘Thomas Weston and the Academy at Greenwich’, Transactions of the Greenwich and Lewisham Antiquarian Society (1984) 9, pp. 313–333Google Scholar; Kirby, J.W., ‘Early Greenwich schools and schoolmasters’, Transactions of the Greenwich and Lewisham Antiquarian Society (1929) 3, pp. 218–241Google Scholar. Weston's brother John later took over the academy and as examiner.

50 Flamsteed to Lord Aston, 20 February 1702/1703, Letter 891, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 2, p. 1002.

51 Henry Stanyan to Flamsteed, 30 August/10 September 1706, Letter 1118, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, p. 346.

52 Iliffe, Rob and Willmoth, Frances, ‘Astronomy and the domestic sphere: Margaret Flamsteed and Caroline Herschel as assistant-astronomers’, in Hunter, Lynette and Hutton, Sarah (eds.), Women, Science and Medicine 1500–1700, Stroud: Sutton, 1997, pp. 235–265Google Scholar.

53 Stanyan to Flamsteed, 1/12 May 1706, Letter 1088, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, p. 309.

54 Flamsteed to Sharp, 12 July 1707 and 23 July 1708, Letters 1180 and 1209, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, pp. 433, 478.

55 Iliffe and Willmoth, op. cit. (52), p. 253.

56 Johns, op. cit. (13), pp. 612–617; Iliffe and Willmoth, op. cit. (52), pp. 254–255; Cook, op. cit. (29), pp. 178–183; Flamsteed's account and correspondence between Crosthwait and Sharp are in Baily, op. cit. (19).

57 Frontispiece engraved by Vertue, George, after Catenaro, Giovanni Battista, in Flamsteed, John, Historiae coelestis libri duo …, 2 vols., London: J. Mathews, 1712, vol. 1Google Scholar.

58 Frontispiece engraved by Vertue, George, after Gibson, Thomas, in Flamsteed, John, Historia Coelestis Britannica, 3 vols., London: H. Meere, 1725, vol. 1Google Scholar; Chapman, Allan (ed.), The Preface to John Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica, or, British Catalogue of the Heavens (1725) (tr. Johnson, Alison Dione), London: National Maritime Museum, 1982Google Scholar.

59 Crosthwait told Sharp in a letter of 6 May 1720, ‘we can depend upon very little from Mr. Hodgson’. Baily, op. cit. (19), p. 335.

60 Warrant, 15 February 1724, British Library, Evelyn Papers, Add MS 78683, f. 172. I am grateful to Elizabeth Yale for this reference. Margaret Flamsteed's not rewarding Crosthwait has been attributed to the £1,000 stock she inherited losing value, but this should have been regained after 1720: see Helen J. Paul, ‘The “South Sea Bubble”, 1720’, European History Online (2015), at www.ieg-ego.eu/paulh-2015-en, accessed 9 August 2018.

61 Margaret Flamsteed's will, made 23 December 1728, proved 30 July 1730, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, pp. 940–942. On Tycho as a model, and the portraits, see Willmoth, op. cit. (8), pp. 62–75. The Oxford pair were lent to the Museum for the History of Science in 2001 (Flamsteed after Thomas Gibson, 1712, Inv: 49865; Tycho Brahe, anonymous, seventeenth century, Inv. 18236); the Royal Society pair were presented in 1732 (Flamsteed by Thomas Murray, c.1680; Tycho Brahe, unknown, c.1620s).

62 Orders and instructions to Captain John Pelly, Thomas Liell and John Hodgson, supercargoes of the Princes of Wales, bound for Banjarmassin and Canton, 12 October 1737, East India Company Letter Books, British Library, E/3/107, ff. 134v–139. His death on 14 November 1751, and a legacy of £200 p.a. for his father, is recorded in the London Magazine (1751) 20, p. 525.

63 Flamsteed to Abraham Sharp, 18 June 1719, Letter 1505, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, p. 914.

64 Frances Willmoth, ‘Hodgson, James (bap. 1678?, d. 1755)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, at http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/13437, accessed 21 August 2018; Howse, Derek, ‘The Tompion clocks at Greenwich and the dead-beat escapement, with an appendix by Beresford Hutchinson’, Antiquarian Horology (1970) 12, pp. 18–34Google Scholar, (1971) 3, pp. 114–133; Thomas Tompion, year-going clock, 1676, British Museum 1928,0607.1; Venetian object glass, R.S. 25, Science Museum Inv: 1932-460; meeting of 23 November 1732, Journal Book, Royal Society, JBO/15, p. 185. Hodgson also gifted a number of books, for which he was excused his debts: meeting 20 August 1730, Council Minutes, Royal Society, CMO/3/28.

65 Museum of the History of Science, ‘The noble Dane: images of Tycho Brahe’, at www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/tycho/catfm.htm?tycho, accessed 9 August 2018. The Bodleian in fact received a copy and the original remained with John Hodgson's heirs until given to the Royal Society by John Belchier: meeting of 7 May 1772, JBO/27, pp. 622–623. Belchier represented Elizabeth Tew, wife of John Hodgson's executor John Tew, when she sold Flamsteed's papers in 1771.

66 Flamsteed to Abraham Sharp, 18 December 1703, Letter 92, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, p. 48.

67 Halley to [John Arbuthnot], 6 May 1711, Letter 1295, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, p. 602.

68 The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, p. 673 (note); Laurie, op. cit. (16), p. 172.

69 Flamsteed to John Wallis, 24 June 1701, in Baily, op. cit. (19), p. 197.

70 Iliffe, op. cit. (4), p. 144.

71 Flamsteed to Sharp, 21 October 1705, Letter 949, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, p. 91; Ellerton, Nerida F. and Clements, M.A., Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, James Hodgson, and the Beginnings of Secondary School Mathematics: A History of the Royal Mathematical School within Christ's Hospital, London 1673–1868, Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017, pp. 122–142CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Hodgson, James, The Theory of Navigation Demonstrated: and Its Rudiments Clearly and Plainly Proved, from the First and most Simple Principles of the Mathematicks …, London: printed for Dawkes, I., for Richard Mount and Company, 1706, p. 5Google Scholar. Flamsteed made similar comments to Pepys, 21 April 1697, regarding RMS teaching. Iliffe, op. cit. (4), pp. 140–143.

73 Moore, Jonas, A New Systeme of the Mathematicks, London: printed by Godbid, A. and Playford, J. for Robert Scot, 1681, vol. 2, Book 2, p. 3Google Scholar.

74 Hodgson, op. cit. (72), pp. 8, 307.

75 Dedication to George, I, in Hodgson, James, A System of the Mathematics, 2 vols., London, printed for Page, Thomas, William and Fisher Mount, 1723Google Scholar.

76 Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 1, pp. v, 208.

77 Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 1, pp. 373 ff.

78 Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 1, p. 377. Flamsteed said similar to Pepys, 21 April 1697. See Iliffe, op. cit. (4), pp. 140–143. See also Hodgson, James, The Theory of Jupiter's Satellites, with the Construction and use of the Tables for Computing their Eclipses, London: printed for the author and sold by W. and J. Mount and T. Page, 1749Google Scholar. This said the work was done ‘At the request of my worthy kind Friend and Relation, the late Revered Mr John Flamsteed, His Majesty's Astronomer-Royal’, and emphasized their interest in training ‘a Set of skillful able Men’ to navigate and make useful observations.

79 Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 1, p. 379.

80 Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 1, p. 380.

81 Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 1, pp. 382–383.

82 Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 1, p. 385.

83 Witty, John, A Treatise of the Sphere; Shewing How it is deriv'd from the Theory which justly Asserts the Motion of the Earth, London, printed by Leake, J. for John Wyat, 1714Google Scholar, Chapter IV, Section II. Hodgson also revised and published the second edition of 1734.

84 Iliffe and Willmoth, op. cit. (52), pp. 251–252; ‘John Witty’, in Dolan op. cit. (1), at www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php?article=1152, accessed 10 August 2018.

85 Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 1, pp. 81–82. See The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, pp. 195, 910, 914, 925. Hodgson told Flamsteed he was including the method in a second edition of his Theory of Navigation (c.1720), of which there are no surviving copies.

86 Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 2, pp. x, 512, 513, 515.

87 Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 2, p. 430.

88 Iliffe, op. cit. (4); Margaret Schotte, ‘Hands-on theory at the Royal Mathematical School – Deptford, 1683’, paper at Das Meer conference, Wolfenbüttel, 5–7 October 2017; Schotte, , Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming 2019)Google Scholar.

89 Jones, Clifford, The Sea and the Sky: The History of the Royal Mathematical School of Christ's Hospital, Horsham: Clifford Jones, 2015, pp. 97–98Google Scholar; Schotte, ‘Hands-on theory’, op. cit. (88).

90 Ellerton and Clements, op. cit. (71), p. 125.

91 Baily, op. cit. (19), pp. 64, 65.

92 Royal Hospital minutes, 4 November 1715, quoted in in Sloane, ‘Thomas Weston’, op. cit. (49), p. 318.

93 Kirby, op. cit. (49), p. 232.

94 Weston, Thomas, A Copy-Book Written for the Use of the Young-Gentlemen at the Academy in Greenwich [London], 1726Google Scholar; Weston, , Drawing-Book compos'd for the use of the young gentlemen at the Academy in Greenwich [London, 1726]Google Scholar; Weston, , Veteris arithmeticae elementa: sive De symbolicis et practicis partibus arithmeticae, ab antiquis hebraesis, graecis et romanis usurpatae … tractatus: in usum studiosae juventutis in Academiâ Grenovici … [London, 1726]Google Scholar; Weston, , A Treatise of Arithmetic, in Whole Numbers and Fractions …, London: published by Weston, John, printed for J. Hooke, 1729Google Scholar.

95 Weston, Drawing-Book, op. cit. (94), preface.

96 Sloan, ‘Thomas Weston’, op. cit. (49), p. 318.

97 Quoted in Sloan, ‘Thomas Weston’, op. cit. (49), pp. 321–322.

98 Kirby, op. cit. (49), p. 233; London Journal, 14 December 1723, p. 3. The audience for Cato on 12 December 1723 included the Countess of Albermarle, granddaughter of two individuals linked to the foundation of the ROG, Charles II and Louise de Kérouaille.

99 Dedication by Weston, John in Galilei, Galileo, Mathematical Discourses Concerning the Two New Sciences Relating to Mechanical and Local Motion (tr. Weston, Thomas), London: published by Weston, John and printed for J. Hooke, 1730Google Scholar.

100 Comparative examples of portraits of practical mathematicians, particularly instrument-makers, are discussed in Fox, Celina, The Arts of Industry in the Age of Enlightenment, New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2009, pp. 313–335Google Scholar; and Jordanova, Ludmilla, Defining Features: Scientific and Medical Portraits 1660–2000, London: Reaktion Books, 2000, pp. 54–61Google Scholar.

101 On Weston's Copy-Book, which focused on figure drawing and landscapes, see Sloan, ‘The teaching of non-professional artists’, op. cit. (49); and Hsieh, Chia-Chuan, ‘The emergence and impact of the “complete drawing book” in mid-eighteenth-century England’, Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies (2013), 36, pp. 395–414, 399–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 Similar sets made by Thomas Heath are Science Museum Inv 1954-327 and 1918-121.

103 Flamsteed told Sharp that Hodgson was ‘perfecting his knowledge of the Latin tongue. the Fluxions and series’, 12–13 December 1705, Letter 1059, in The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, op. cit. (7), vol. 3, p. 268.

104 The diagrams are from Hodgson, op. cit. (75), vol. 2, pp. 260, 262, on stereographical solutions to a problem about finding the amplitude of the sun on the plane of the ecliptic, horizon and equator. This problem was ‘the principal Thing wanting at present to render the several Method hitherto proposed by Astronomers, for finding the Longitude at Sea practicable’. Ibid., p. 287.

105 Ellerton and Clements, op. cit. (71), pp. 105–110.

106 Higgitt, op. cit. (33), pp. 25–26, 32–35. Learning could go both ways; see Bennett, Jim, ‘Mathematicians on board: introducing lunar distances to life at sea’, BJHS (2019) 52, pp. 65–83CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

107 ‘The Royal Observatory, Greenwich’, Weekly Visitor (1835) 129, p. 69Google Scholar.