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WILLIAM SPOTTISWOODE was born in London on January 11, 1825. He belonged to an ancient Scottish family, many members of which have risen to distinction in Scotland and in America. He was first sent to a school at Laleham, under Mr. Buckland, brother of Dean Buckland. Thence he was removed to Eton, where his stay was short. He was transferred from Eton to Harrow, then under Dr. Wordsworth, his house tutor being Mr. Harris. On entrance he was placed on the "upper shell," a high form in those days for a new comer. At school he was a very studious, quiet, and thoughtful boy, not much given to athletic games. He remained at Harrow three years, and in 1842 obtained a Lyon scholarship. In the same year he entered Balliol College, Oxford, the present Bishop of Exeter (Dr. Temple) being his mathematical tutor. Subsequently, in 1845, the last year of his residence as an undergraduate, he read with' the Rev. Bartholomew Price, now Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Oxford. He took a first class in mathematics, and afterwards obtained the Junior (1846) and Senior (1847) University Mathematical Scholarships. After his degree he resided at Oxford for a short time, and gave a course of lectures at Balliol College on Geometry of Three Dimensions. After leaving Oxford, in 1846, he immediately took an active part in the working management of the business of the Queen's Printers, which was relinquished to him by his father, Andrew Spottiswoode. He possessed remarkable gifts as an organiser, and the business developed largely under his hands. In 1861 he married the eldest daughter of the late William Urquhart Arbuthnot, a distinguished member of the Indian Council.
Spottiswoode's first published work was a small quarto volume of 136 pages, containing five tracts upon different subjects in pure mathematics. This volume appeared in 1847, under the title Meditationes Analytica. Four years later he published a much more notable pamphlet, entitled Elementary Theorems relating to Determinants. A second edition, rewritten and much enlarged, was published in Vol. li. of Crelle's Journal. This was the earliest elementary treatise on a useful mathematical notation which, with the algorithm and processes connected with it, has since risen to great importance, and has influenced every branch of Mathematics, and many of its applications. It contains a good account of what had at that time been effected on this subject, and is the best known of Spottiswoode's mathematical writings.
He was the author of numerous papers, chiefly relating to geometry treated analytically, and to symbolic methods, which were printed in the publications of the Royal Society, the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, the Philosophical Magazine, the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, Crelle's Journal, the Comptes Rendus, the Proceedings of the Royal Institution, &c. He was the author of but one paper published by this Society: it appeared in Vol. xxix. (1861) of the Memoirs, under the title "On a Method for Determining Longitude by means of Observations on the Moon's Greatest Altitude."
He contributed to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society two papers, the one relating to the supposed discovery of the principle of the differential calculus by an Indian astronomer, and the other to the Súrya Siddhanta and the Hindoo method of calculating eclipses.
In 1856 he made a journey through Eastern Russia, and of this he published an account in his book A Tarantasse Journey through Eastern Russia in the Autumn of 1856 (London, 1857).
Since 1870 he divided his attention between mathematics and physics; and the papers on electrical discharges through rarefied gases, published by him alone, and also conjointly with Mr. J. F. Moulton, in the Philosophical Transactions, are well known.
The prevailing character of his mathematical work may be said to be symmetry: and he has been called, like Serret, " un artiste en formules." He was most attracted by what may be called the morphology of mathematics, as, for example, results deduced from the form of the expressions. The following words of his own are worth reproducing here, as they not only point out the influence of such matters on the progress of science, but also indicate the kind of work that interested him the most. "There are a few certain relations so elementary in their conception, yet so universal in their application, that they seem capable of forming the basis of extensive theories; such, for example, in geometry is that of anharmonic ratio. Such, again, in algebra are those of homogeneity and of symmetry, which prove to be not merely improvements in form but actually new powers for progress in the hands of the mathematician. The calculus of homogeneous forms has marked a new era in the history of algebra; the theory of equations has been transfigured in its light; mechanics, both ordinary and molecular, have been elucidated by it; and the remote applications of the integral calculus have felt its ever-extending influence. Under these, as it were, new fundamental conceptions whole theories may be coordinated; and of these, again, perhaps some coordination may one day be contemplated. As another instance of this generalisation of principles, and of this dual aspect of the principles so generalised within almost the present generation, it has been discovered, or at all events been duly realised, that symbols of operation combine according to definite laws, comprising as a particular case those of ordinary number. This fertile idea has, year by year, been receiving fuller developments, till it has at last assumed the form of a complete calculus."
His Presidential Address to the London Mathematical Society, which related to the modern algebras that have so distinguished the progress of mathematics in our day, attracted considerable attention among those interested in symbolic processes and symbolic logic. His British Association Address at Dublin, in 1878, related mainly to the philosophy of mathematical theories which depend essentially upon the modern ideas which have grown up so recently in connection with the theory of space.
He showed great ability as an organiser wherever he had to do with business in any form; and he had in the highest degree the faculty of warmly attaching to himself friends and acquaintances. He was a many-sided man, and it was the combination in him of various gifts and powers, and not the prominence of any one in particular, that won for him so distinguished a position among the men of his time. As a business man he possessed a wonderful capacity for mastering the most complicated detail. He was a man of the world, with a very wide circle of friends, chief among whom were the most earnest and most devoted labourers in different departments of knowledge. His house at Grosvenor Place was the centre of scientific society in London, and his garden parties at his country estate near Sevenoaks were brilliant gatherings of men eminent in various walks of life.
He was Treasurer of the British Association from 1861 to 1874, of the Royal Institution from 1865 to 1873, and of the Royal Society from 1871 to 1878. In 1871 he succeeded Dr. Bence Jones as Honorary Secretary of the Royal Institution. He was President of the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association in 1865, of the British Association itself in 1878, and of the London Mathematical Society in the two years 1870-72. He was elected President of the Royal Society in 1878, in succession to Sir Joseph Hooker, and still held this office at the time of his death. He was an LL.D. of Cambridge, Dublin, and Edinburgh, and a D.C.L. of Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of this Society on April 7, 1852. He died on June 27, 1883, of Roman, or typhoid, fever, which he had caught during a visit to Italy. From the first his illness had caused serious alarm; and the more so as his strength had been materially affected by a severe tricycle accident which he met with in the previous year, and as his indefatigable attention to duties of various kinds had greatly overtaxed his constitution. Since Sir Joseph Banks, no President of the Royal Society has died in office. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on July 5, in a grave near that of his ancestor, Archbishop Spottiswood.
In his Presidential Address to the Royal Society on November 30, 1883, Prof. Huxley, referred to his predecessor as a chief, "of whom all those who had the highest interests of this Society at heart hoped that he would continue for many a year to discharge the responsible and laborious duties of his office with that broad intelligence, that faithful diligence, that inexhaustible patience and courtesy, which were so characteristic of the man," and he proceeded as follows:
"Every one of the Fellows of the Society in whose hearing I speak, knows that these are no words of a conventional eulogy, as of a customary epitaph. But it is only those who worked with our late President in the Council, or as officers of the Society, who are in a position fully to appreciate his singular capacity for the transaction of business with clear judgment and rapid decision, and yet with the most conscientious consideration of the views of those with whom he was associated. And I may add that it is only those who enjoyed Mr. Spottiswoode's intimate friendship, as it was my privilege to do for some quarter of a century, who can know how much was lost when there vanished from among us that rare personality, so commingled of delicate sensitiveness with marvellous self-control, of rigid principle with genial tolerance, of energetic practical activity with untiring benevolence, that it always seemed to me the embodiment of that exquisite ideal of a true gentleman which Geoffrey Chaucer drew five hundred years ago.... It is not for me to pass judgment upon Mr. Spottiswoode's scientific labours; but I have the best authority for saying that, having occupied himself with many branches of mathematics, more especially with the higher algebra, including the theory of determinants, with the general calculus of symbols, and with the application of analysis to geometry and mechanics, he did excellent and durable work in all; and that in virtue of his sound and wide culture, his deep penetration, and the singular elegance with which he habitually treated all his subjects, he occupied a place in the front rank of English mathematicians.
"The interment in Westminster Abbey of one who, though compelled to devote a large share of his time to business, was a born man of science, and had won himself so high a place among mathematicians, was doubtless grateful to us as men of science, ... yet as men, I think it is good to regard those solemn and pathetic obsequies as the tribute which even our busy, careless, cynical, modern world spontaneously pays to such worth and wisdom, to such large humanity and unspotted purity, as were manifested in the very perfect gentle knight' who so well represented the chivalry of science."
Perhaps no words could more happily express the estimation in which Mr. Spottiswoode was held by his friends.
J. W. L. G.
Spottiswoode's first published work was a small quarto volume of 136 pages, containing five tracts upon different subjects in pure mathematics. This volume appeared in 1847, under the title Meditationes Analytica. Four years later he published a much more notable pamphlet, entitled Elementary Theorems relating to Determinants. A second edition, rewritten and much enlarged, was published in Vol. li. of Crelle's Journal. This was the earliest elementary treatise on a useful mathematical notation which, with the algorithm and processes connected with it, has since risen to great importance, and has influenced every branch of Mathematics, and many of its applications. It contains a good account of what had at that time been effected on this subject, and is the best known of Spottiswoode's mathematical writings.
He was the author of numerous papers, chiefly relating to geometry treated analytically, and to symbolic methods, which were printed in the publications of the Royal Society, the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, the Philosophical Magazine, the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, Crelle's Journal, the Comptes Rendus, the Proceedings of the Royal Institution, &c. He was the author of but one paper published by this Society: it appeared in Vol. xxix. (1861) of the Memoirs, under the title "On a Method for Determining Longitude by means of Observations on the Moon's Greatest Altitude."
He contributed to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society two papers, the one relating to the supposed discovery of the principle of the differential calculus by an Indian astronomer, and the other to the Súrya Siddhanta and the Hindoo method of calculating eclipses.
In 1856 he made a journey through Eastern Russia, and of this he published an account in his book A Tarantasse Journey through Eastern Russia in the Autumn of 1856 (London, 1857).
Since 1870 he divided his attention between mathematics and physics; and the papers on electrical discharges through rarefied gases, published by him alone, and also conjointly with Mr. J. F. Moulton, in the Philosophical Transactions, are well known.
The prevailing character of his mathematical work may be said to be symmetry: and he has been called, like Serret, " un artiste en formules." He was most attracted by what may be called the morphology of mathematics, as, for example, results deduced from the form of the expressions. The following words of his own are worth reproducing here, as they not only point out the influence of such matters on the progress of science, but also indicate the kind of work that interested him the most. "There are a few certain relations so elementary in their conception, yet so universal in their application, that they seem capable of forming the basis of extensive theories; such, for example, in geometry is that of anharmonic ratio. Such, again, in algebra are those of homogeneity and of symmetry, which prove to be not merely improvements in form but actually new powers for progress in the hands of the mathematician. The calculus of homogeneous forms has marked a new era in the history of algebra; the theory of equations has been transfigured in its light; mechanics, both ordinary and molecular, have been elucidated by it; and the remote applications of the integral calculus have felt its ever-extending influence. Under these, as it were, new fundamental conceptions whole theories may be coordinated; and of these, again, perhaps some coordination may one day be contemplated. As another instance of this generalisation of principles, and of this dual aspect of the principles so generalised within almost the present generation, it has been discovered, or at all events been duly realised, that symbols of operation combine according to definite laws, comprising as a particular case those of ordinary number. This fertile idea has, year by year, been receiving fuller developments, till it has at last assumed the form of a complete calculus."
His Presidential Address to the London Mathematical Society, which related to the modern algebras that have so distinguished the progress of mathematics in our day, attracted considerable attention among those interested in symbolic processes and symbolic logic. His British Association Address at Dublin, in 1878, related mainly to the philosophy of mathematical theories which depend essentially upon the modern ideas which have grown up so recently in connection with the theory of space.
He showed great ability as an organiser wherever he had to do with business in any form; and he had in the highest degree the faculty of warmly attaching to himself friends and acquaintances. He was a many-sided man, and it was the combination in him of various gifts and powers, and not the prominence of any one in particular, that won for him so distinguished a position among the men of his time. As a business man he possessed a wonderful capacity for mastering the most complicated detail. He was a man of the world, with a very wide circle of friends, chief among whom were the most earnest and most devoted labourers in different departments of knowledge. His house at Grosvenor Place was the centre of scientific society in London, and his garden parties at his country estate near Sevenoaks were brilliant gatherings of men eminent in various walks of life.
He was Treasurer of the British Association from 1861 to 1874, of the Royal Institution from 1865 to 1873, and of the Royal Society from 1871 to 1878. In 1871 he succeeded Dr. Bence Jones as Honorary Secretary of the Royal Institution. He was President of the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association in 1865, of the British Association itself in 1878, and of the London Mathematical Society in the two years 1870-72. He was elected President of the Royal Society in 1878, in succession to Sir Joseph Hooker, and still held this office at the time of his death. He was an LL.D. of Cambridge, Dublin, and Edinburgh, and a D.C.L. of Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of this Society on April 7, 1852. He died on June 27, 1883, of Roman, or typhoid, fever, which he had caught during a visit to Italy. From the first his illness had caused serious alarm; and the more so as his strength had been materially affected by a severe tricycle accident which he met with in the previous year, and as his indefatigable attention to duties of various kinds had greatly overtaxed his constitution. Since Sir Joseph Banks, no President of the Royal Society has died in office. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on July 5, in a grave near that of his ancestor, Archbishop Spottiswood.
In his Presidential Address to the Royal Society on November 30, 1883, Prof. Huxley, referred to his predecessor as a chief, "of whom all those who had the highest interests of this Society at heart hoped that he would continue for many a year to discharge the responsible and laborious duties of his office with that broad intelligence, that faithful diligence, that inexhaustible patience and courtesy, which were so characteristic of the man," and he proceeded as follows:
"Every one of the Fellows of the Society in whose hearing I speak, knows that these are no words of a conventional eulogy, as of a customary epitaph. But it is only those who worked with our late President in the Council, or as officers of the Society, who are in a position fully to appreciate his singular capacity for the transaction of business with clear judgment and rapid decision, and yet with the most conscientious consideration of the views of those with whom he was associated. And I may add that it is only those who enjoyed Mr. Spottiswoode's intimate friendship, as it was my privilege to do for some quarter of a century, who can know how much was lost when there vanished from among us that rare personality, so commingled of delicate sensitiveness with marvellous self-control, of rigid principle with genial tolerance, of energetic practical activity with untiring benevolence, that it always seemed to me the embodiment of that exquisite ideal of a true gentleman which Geoffrey Chaucer drew five hundred years ago.... It is not for me to pass judgment upon Mr. Spottiswoode's scientific labours; but I have the best authority for saying that, having occupied himself with many branches of mathematics, more especially with the higher algebra, including the theory of determinants, with the general calculus of symbols, and with the application of analysis to geometry and mechanics, he did excellent and durable work in all; and that in virtue of his sound and wide culture, his deep penetration, and the singular elegance with which he habitually treated all his subjects, he occupied a place in the front rank of English mathematicians.
"The interment in Westminster Abbey of one who, though compelled to devote a large share of his time to business, was a born man of science, and had won himself so high a place among mathematicians, was doubtless grateful to us as men of science, ... yet as men, I think it is good to regard those solemn and pathetic obsequies as the tribute which even our busy, careless, cynical, modern world spontaneously pays to such worth and wisdom, to such large humanity and unspotted purity, as were manifested in the very perfect gentle knight' who so well represented the chivalry of science."
Perhaps no words could more happily express the estimation in which Mr. Spottiswoode was held by his friends.
J. W. L. G.
William Spottiswoode's obituary appeared in Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 44:4 (1884), 150-153.