John Dawson (surgeon)

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John Dawson (1734–1820) was both a mathematician and surgeon. He was born at Raygill in Garsdale where "Dawson's Rock" celebrates the site of his early thinking about conic sections. He originally studied medicine at Edinburgh but returned to Garsdale until he earned enough as a private tutor in Mathematics at Sedbergh School to enable him to complete his MD from London in 1765 .

He was a private tutor at the University of Cambridge where his pupils included twelve Senior Wranglers between 1781 and 1807, and he made precise calculations of the distance between the earth and the sun. He studied the orbit of the moon and the dynamics of objects in central force fields.

He is notable as a mentor of Adam Sedgwick.

[edit] References

• Dictionary of National Biography; Smith, Elder & Co., 1908-1986, vol. 5, pp. 675-677.
• J.W. Clark and T.M. Hughes, The Life and Letters of the Reverend Adam Sedgwick, Cambridge University Press, 1890, vol.1, pp. 60–71.