Memoirs of the Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain Living in the Years 1807-8

During the later portion of his life, Sir Humphry was in very infirm health, and in 1828 he determined to go abroad. Proceeding into Italy, he fixed his residence at Rome, whenc...

During the progress of the Kildare Canal, Mr. Chapman, at the request of the Duke of Leinster, became overseer, conjointly with him and the Hon. Mr. Ponsonby Moore, for the buil...

Captain Huddart lived to an advanced old age, and even in his last illness his disposition to inquire into causes and effects did not forsake him, as his body gradually wasted a...

A short time before the termination of the war with France he devised a plan for making shoes by machinery, and under the countenance of the Duke of York the shoes so manufactur...

Mr. Crompton laid the result of his investigation before some kind friends[14] at Manchester, who undertook to draw up a memorial to Parliament on his behalf. But in this matter...

After being employed for two years as a 'powder monkey' in the dockyard, that is, in making and filling cartridges, Maudslay was placed, at the age of fourteen, in the carpenter...

Richard Trevithick, inventor of the first high pressure steam-engine, and the first steam-carriage used in England, was born in the parish of Illogan, in Cornwall. He was the so...

Dr. Black expired in the seventy-first year of his age, without any convulsion, shock, or stupor to announce or retard the approach of death. Being at table with his usual fare,...

Richard Watson, celebrated both as an able theologian, and as a professor of chemistry, was born at Haversham, near Kendal in Westmoreland. His ancestors had been farmers of the...

Dr. William Henry, the distinguished chemical philosopher, was born at Manchester. His father, Mr. Thomas Henry, was a zealous cultivator of chemical science. The earliest impre...

Mr. Smith was now (1795) twenty-six years old, and at this period removed from the village of High Littleton to Bath, in the vicinity of which city he shortly afterwards purchas...

In 1785 Mr. Boulton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and two or three years after this, turned his attention to the subject of coining, to the improvement of which art...

Towards the close of the year 1828, Wollaston became dangerously ill with disease of the brain. Feeling his end approaching, and being unable to write himself, he employed an am...

These operations afforded, however, good opportunities for obtaining practical knowledge, and Telford himself has expressed his sense of the value of this humble training, obser...

In 1769 Playfair removed to Edinburgh, and while residing there became acquainted with Adam Smith, Drs. Robertson, Matthew Stewart, Black, and Hutton, with all of whom he contin...

A great part of the knowledge resulting from the various travels of Mr. Banks were communicated by him, at different times, in papers to the Royal Society, of which he had been...

On the completion of these docks his professional services were engaged by the citizens of Bristol, to effect a great and comprehensive measure of harbour improvement, designed...

In 1825, Mr. Ronalds invented a perspective tracing instrument, to facilitate drawing from nature or from plans and elevations, an account of which he published in 1828 in a wor...

Messrs. Walker's great historical engraving of the "Distinguished Men of Science," noticed some weeks ago in these columns, is accompanied by a well written and handsomely print...

THE following brief memoirs were originally compiled for the purpose of accompanying the Engraving of "The Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain living in 1807-8, assemb...