Baden Powell (mathematician)
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- For the founder of Scouting, see Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell.
- For the musician, see Baden Powell de Aquino.
The Reverend Professor Baden Powell, MA, FRS, FRGS (1796-08-22 – 1860-06-11) was an English mathematician: He held the Savilian Chair of Geometry at the University of Oxford from 1827 to 1860. After his death his family changed their surname to Baden-Powell in his memory.
His son, Sir George Baden-Powell was a politician, and served in the Colonial Service. Another son, Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, was the founder of the world scouting movement. A third son, Major Baden Baden-Powell was an aviation pioneer and travelled the world extensively. His daughter Agnes Baden-Powell was, with her brother Robert, the founder of the Girl Guides movement.
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[edit] Family
Professor Baden Powell first marriage in 1821 with Eliza Rivaz (died 1836-03-13) was childless, and the second marriage in 1837 with Charlotte Pope (died 1844-10-14) produced one son and three daughters
- Charlotte Elizabeth Powell (1838-09-14 — 1917-10-20)
- Baden Henry Powell (1841-08-23 — 1901-01-02)
- Louisa Ann Powell (1843-03-18 — 1896-08-01)
- Laetitia Mary Powell (1844-06-04 — 1865-09-02)
Powell married again in 1846 with Henrietta Grace Smyth (1824-09-03 — 1914-10-13), and had sevens sons and three daughters:
- Henry Warrington Smyth Baden-Powell, KC (1847-02-03 — 1921-04-24)
- Sir George Smyth Baden-Powell, KCMG, MP (1847-12-24 — 1898-11-20)
- Augustus Baden-Powell (1849 - 1863), premature death
- Francis Smyth Baden-Powell (1850-07-29 — 1931)
- Henrietta Smith Baden-Powell (1851-10-28 — 1854-03-09), premature death
- John Penrose Smyth Baden-Powell (1852-12-21 — 1855-12-14), premature death
- Jessie Smyth Baden-Powell (1855-11-25 — 1856-07-24), premature death
- Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell (1857-02-22 — 1941-01-08)
- Agnes Smyth Baden-Powell, (1858-12-16? — 1945-06-02)
- Major Baden Fletcher Smyth Baden-Powell, FS, FRAS, FRMetS (1860-05-22 — 1937-10-03
[edit] Evolution
Powell's views were very liberal, and he was sympathetic to evolutionary theory in the early 1850s, even before Charles Darwin had revealed his ideas. He set forth a theological argument; if God is a lawgiver, then a "miracle" would break the lawful edicts that had been issued at Creation. Therefore, a belief in miracles would be entirely atheistic.
This led Joseph Dalton Hooker to comment "These parsons are so in the habit of dealing with the abstraction of doctrines as if there was no difficulty about them whatever... that they gallop over the [science] course... as if we were in the pews and they in the pulpit. Witness the self confident style of...Baden Powell".
[edit] Essays and Reviews
He was one of seven liberal theologians who produced a manifesto titled Essays and Reviews around February 1860, which amongst other things joined in the debate over The Origin of Species. These Anglicans included Oxford professors, country clergymen, the headmaster of Rugby school and a layman. Their declaration that miracles were irrational stirred up unprecedented anger, drawing much of the fire away from Charles Darwin. Essays sold 22,000 copies in two years, more than the Origin sold in twenty years, and sparked five years of increasingly polarised debate with books and pamphlets furiously contesting the issues.
Referring to "Mr Darwin's masterly volume" and restating his argument that belief in miracles is atheistic, Baden Powell wrote that the book "must soon bring about an entire revolution in opinion in favour of the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature."
He would have been on the platform at the legendary British Association for the Advancement of Science debate that was a highlight of the reaction to Darwin's theory, but died of a heart attack a fortnight before the meeting.
