Abstract
Charles Page was born in 1810, and between 1818 and 1825 he was a student at the Royal Mathematical School within Christ’s Hospital, London. Over his final two years as a “mathemat” (i.e., student in the Royal Mathematical School) he prepared the 671-page navigation cyphering book which is the subject of analysis in this chapter. Throughout the manuscript the standard of penmanship, calligraphy, artwork, and mathematics is at a very high level—indeed, much of the mathematics in this cyphering book is at a higher level than the mathematics in any of the other extraordinary cyphering books considered in this volume. Careful examination of the entries in Charles Page’s manuscript suggests, however, that many of them were taken down from dictation. In the section on quadratic equations there are unchecked errors, and we were left with the impression that although the appearance of pages was invariably impressive, the quality of Charles’ learning about mathematics and about navigation may have been less than impressive. Details in this chapter provide a glimpse of the expectations on mathemats in the 1820s.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
A Society of Gentlemen. (1773). Review of Robertson’s The Elements of Navigation. The Critical Review: Or Annals of Literature, 35, 130–134.
Alexander, J. (1709). A synopsis of algebra, London, United Kingdom: J. Barber.
Allan, G. A. T. (1984). Christ’s Hospital. London, United Kingdom: Town & Country Books.
Allen, J. B. L. (1970). The English mathematical schools, 1670–1720. PhD thesis, University of Reading.
Bache, A. D. (1839). Report on education in Europe, to the trustees of the Girard College for Orphans. Philadelphia, PA: Bailey.
“Blues” and the Royal Navy. (1900, November 24). The Navy and Army lllustrated, 245–248.
Christ’s Hospital (1823–1830). General Committee minutes, Volume 17. Handwritten manuscript, London Metropolitan Archives Reference CLC/210/B/005/MS12811/017.
Christ’s Hospital (1836–1840). General Committee minutes, Volume 19. Handwritten manuscript, London Metropolitan Archives Reference CLC/210/B/005/MS12811/019.
Christ’s Hospital (1857). Register of Christ’s Hospital Royal Mathematical School boys apprenticed to ships’ masters 1816–1857. Handwritten manuscript, London Metropolitan Archives Reference CLC/526/MS30338.
Christ’s Hospital (1953). The Christ’s Hospital book. London, United Kingdom: Hamish Hamilton.
Coldham, P. W. (1990). Child apprentices in America from Christ’s Hospital, London, 1617–1778. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishers Co.
Cracraft, J. (1971). The church reform of Peter the Great. London, United Kingdom: Macmillan.
Cross, A. (2007). By the banks of the Neva. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Dash, J. (2000). The longitude prize. New York, NY: Frances Foster Books.
Dickinson, H. W. (2007). Educating the Royal Navy. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.
Ditton, H. (1709). An appendix to the algebra of John Alexander. London, United Kingdom: J. Barber.
Dorfman, M. (1966). Lincoln’s arithmetic education: Influence on his life: Part II. Lincoln Herald, 68(3), 108–120.
Ellerton, N. F., & Clements, M. A. (2012). Rewriting the history of school mathematics in North America 1607–1861. New York, NY: Springer.
Hans, N. A. (1951a). The Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation. The Slavonic and East European Review, 29(73), 532–536.
Hans, N. A. (1951b). New trends in education in the 18th century. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.
Hirsch, D., & Van Haften, D. (2010). Abraham Lincoln and the structure of reason. New York, NY: Savas Beatie LLC.
Hodgson, J. (1723). A system of the mathematics, containing the Euclidean geometry, plain and spherical geometry, the projection of the sphere, both orthographic and stereographic, astronomy, the use of globes and navigation. London, United Kingdom: Thomas Page.
Howson, G. (1982). A history of mathematics education in England. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Howson, G., Keitel, C., & Kilpatrick, J. (1981). Curriculum development in mathematics. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Jackson, L. L. (1906). The educational significance of sixteenth century arithmetic. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Jones, H. S. (1954). Foreword by the Astronomer Royal. In E. G. R. Taylor, The mathematical practitioners of Tudor & Stuart England 1485-1714 (pp. ix-x). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Mahan, A. T. (1898). The influence of sea power upon history 1660-1783. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company.
Mann, M. (1865). Life of Horace Mann. Boston, MA: Walker, Fuller, and Company.
Mansell, K. (2011). Christ’s Hospital in the Victorian era. Whitton, United Kingdom: Ashwater Press.
Moore, J., & Perkins, P. (1681). A new systeme of the mathematicks designed for the use of the Royal Foundation of the Mathematical School in Christ’s Hospital. London, United Kingdom: Robert Scott.
Okenfuss, M. J. (1973). Technical training in Russia under Peter the Great. History of Education Quarterly, 13(4), 325–342.
Padfield, P. (2005). Maritime power and the struggle for freedom: Naval campaigns that shaped the modern world. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press.
Pearce, E. H. (1901). Annals of Christ’s Hospital. London, United Kingdom: Hugh Reed.
Plumley, N. (1976). The Royal Mathematical School within Christ's Hospital. Vistas in Astronomy, 20, 51–59.
Robertson, J., & Wales, W. (1780). The elements of navigation containing the theory and practice, with the necessary tables and compendiums for finding the latitude and longitude at sea, to which is added a treatise on marine fortification (4th ed.). London, United Kingdom: Christ’s Hospital.
Singh, P., & Ellerton, N. F. (2013). International collaborative studies in mathematics education. In M. A. Clements, A. J. Bishop, C. Keitel, J. Kilpatrick, & F. Leung (Eds.), Third international handbook of mathematics education (pp. 827–860). New York, NY: Springer.
Sloan, K. M. (1986). The teaching of non-professional artists in eighteenth-century England. PhD thesis, Westfield College, University of London.
Sloan, K. (2000). “A noble art”: Amateur artists and drawing masters c.1600–1800. London, United Kingdom: British Museum Press.
Sobel, D. (1995). Longitude: The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time. New York, NY: Walker and Company.
Stewart, L. (1999). Other centres of calculation, or where the Royal Society didn’t count: Commerce, coffee-houses and natural philosophy in early modern London. British Journal of the History of Science, 32, 132–153.
Trollope, W. (1834). A history of the royal foundation of Christ’s Hospital. London, United Kingdom: Pickering.
Turnbull, H. W. (Ed.). (2008). The correspondence of Isaac Newton 1676–1687 (Vol. II). Cambridge, United Kingdom: The Royal Society and Cambridge University Press.
Van Berkel, K. (1988). A note on Rudolf Snellius and the early history of mathematics in Leiden. In C. Hay (Ed.), Mathematics from manuscript to print 1300–1600 (pp. 156–161). Oxford, United Kingdom: Clarendon Press.
Van Sickle, J. (2011). A history of trigonometry education in the United States: 1776–1900. PhD dissertation, Columbia University.
Waters, D. W. (1958). The art of navigation in England in Elizabethan and early Stuart times. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Wilson, J. I. (1820). A brief history of Christ’s Hospital. London, United Kingdom: Author.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ellerton, N.F., Clements, M.A.(. (2014). From the Royal Mathematical School: Charles Page, 1825. In: Abraham Lincoln’s Cyphering Book and Ten other Extraordinary Cyphering Books. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02502-5_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02502-5_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-02501-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02502-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)