Jedediah Buxton

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Jedediah Buxton
Portrait from the Literary Magazine^[1]
Born	1707 ^[2] Elmton, near Chesterfield
Died	1772 Elmton
Occupation	Farm labourer

Jedediah Buxton (1707-1772), was a noted English mental calculator, born at Elmton, near Chesterfield, in Derbyshire. Although his father was schoolmaster of the parish, and his grandfather had been the vicar, his education had been so neglected that he could not write; and his knowledge, except of numbers, was extremely limited. How he came first to know the relative proportions of numbers, and their progressive denominations, he did not remember; but on such matters his attention was so constantly riveted, that he frequently took no cognizance of external objects, and when he did, it was only with reference to their numbers. He measured the whole lordship of Elmton, consisting of some thousand acres (4 km²), simply by striding over it, and gave the area not only in acres, roods and perches, but even in square inches. After this, he reduced them into square hairs'-breadths, reckoning forty-eight to each side of the inch. His memory was so great, that in resolving a question he could leave off and resume the operation again at the same point after the lapse of a week, or even of several months. His perpetual application to figures prevented the smallest acquisition of any other knowledge. Among the many examples of Buxton's arithmetical feats which are given in these letters, are his calculation of the product of a farthing doubled 139 times. The result, expressed in pounds, extends to thirty-nine figures, and is correct so far as it can be readily verified by the use of logarithms.^[2] Buxton afterwards multiplied this enormous number by itself. It appears that he had invented an original nomenclature for large numbers, a ' tribe ' being the cube of a million, and a ' cramp ' (if Mr. Holliday's statement can be trusted) a thousand ' tribes of tribes.'^[2]

[edit] Journey to London

His wonderful faculty was tested in 1754 by the Royal Society when he walked to London^[2], who acknowledged their satisfaction by presenting him with a handsome gratuity. During his visit to the metropolis he was taken to see the tragedy of Richard III. performed at Drury Lane theatre, but his whole mind was given to the counting of the words uttered by David Garrick^[2]. Similarly, he set himself to count the steps of the dancers; and he declared that the innumerable sounds produced by the musical instruments had perplexed him beyond measure.

A memoir appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for June 1754, to which, probably through the medium of a Mr Holliday, of Haughton Hall, Nottinghamshire, Buxton had contributed several letters. In this memoir, his age is given as forty-nine, which points to his birth in 1705; the date adopted above is on the authority of Daniel and Samuel Lysons' Magna Britannia (Derbyshire).

His image can be seen online in the National Portrait Gallery collection. A portrait also hangs in Elmton Church.