| William Lax | |
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Ravensworth village, showing a number of buildings that would have existed in Lax's time.
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| Born | 1761 Ravensworth, North Riding of Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 29 October 1836 St Ippolyts, Hertfordshire |
| Residence | St Ippolyts, Hertfordshire |
| Citizenship | British |
| Nationality | English |
| Fields | Astronomy, mathematics |
| Institutions |
University of Cambridge Board of Longitude Fellow of the Royal Society |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Known for | Remarks on a Supposed Error in the Elements of Euclid, Tables to be Used with the Nautical Almanac |
| Influences | Euclid, Isaac Newton, John Locke, Joseph Butler, Samuel Clarke, William Paley, John Bird, Brook Taylor, James Wood, Samuel Vince, William Dealtry, Robert Woodhouse, William Whewell, Colin Maclaurin,[1] Edward Waring,[1] Frans van Schooten,[1] Isaac Barrow,[1] John Wallis,[1] John Cranke |
| Influenced | Henry Cavendish |
| Notable awards | Smith's Prize |
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Notes
His daughter Margaret married Andrew Amos. |
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William Lax AM FRS (1761 – 29 October 1836) was an English astronomer and mathematician who served as Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry at the University of Cambridge for forty one years from 1795 until his death in 1836.
Lax was born in Ravensworth in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He matriculated to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1781 and graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1785 as the Senior Wrangler and first Smith's prizeman of his year. In 1786 he was elected a fellow of Trinity College, ordained as a minister in 1787 and received his Master of Arts in 1788. He was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1796. Lax was granted the livings of vicar of Marsworth, Buckinghamshire and of St Ippolyts near Hitchin, Hertfordshire in 1801, where he erected an observatory.
His obituary claimed that "To whatever Professor Lax applied, he made himself completely master of it". His daughter married Andrew Amos and through that line Lax is the grandfather of Sheldon Amos and the great grandfather of Maurice Amos, a famous legal dynasty.
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Lax was born in Ravensworth, near Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England. He was the son of William (1731 - 19 Aug 1812) also born in Ravensworth, and Hannah Lax (1723 - 9 Feb 1811).[2] The Lax name has its roots in Southern Durham. He was educated at Kirby Ravensworth Free Grammar School situated at nearby Kirby Hill where he was taught by Thomas Dixon.[3] There he was taught Latin and Greek as well as English language, arithmetic and mathematics.[4] He was admitted as a sizar to Trinity College, Cambridge University on 22 November 1780 at the age of 19. Sizars were students of limited means who were charged lower fees and obtained free food and/or lodging and other assistance during their period of study, often in exchange for performing work at their colleges. Lax matriculated in the Michaelmas term of 1781 and became a private tutor to John Pond, later Astronomer Royal.[5][6] Lax was elected a scholar of Trinity in 1784.[7] John Cranke and Henry Therond were his tutors. Lax was conferred a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in 1785 and graduated as the Senior Wrangler and was awarded the first Smith's Prize of his year.
In 1785 he was appointed curate of Tideswell in the Peak District of Derbyshire with an annual stipend of £35.[8] In 1786 he was elected a fellow of Trinity College.[9] He was ordained as a minister in 1787 and received his Master of Arts (M.A.) in 1788. He was a moderator in 1790 and 1791 which entailed him presiding over oral examinations which were necessary to receive one's B.A.. In this capacity Lax was responsible for the introduction of "very high flown compliments, and at the same time extending the disputations to double the usual length, which was around one hour and ten minutes" which "sent a ripple through tradition" according to Greg Dening.[10][11] Dening continues that it was "Lax's way of getting into the act and making Acts flourish".[11] Lax was an assistant tutor from 1797 until 1801, a role he had to resign from when he decided to enter into a marriage.[7][12]
See also: Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry
In 1795 Lax was appointed Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry in succession to John Smith. The position was a sinecure with an annual salary initially of around £300, later rising to around £500 per annum by 1821.[13][14] Cambridge had two astronomical chairs and the Lowndean was seen as the more theoretical and less experimental of the two. During Lax's tenure a mathematical chair was seen as "a prize or a means of securing leisure, and at best, merely as offering a position where a man could pursue his own researches undisturbed by other duties".[15] During his tenure at the university he "never, as far as is known, delivered a single lecture" despite his chair's bequest that the holder deliver forty lectures each year, although his predecessor John Smith had not given any lectures either.[16][17] The excuse given was that as there was already an astronomical chair at Cambridge established before the Lowndean that already gave lectures.[13] By the 1820s it was no longer acceptable to consider chairs as sinecures, and Lax received criticism from a living descendent of the original benefactor Thomas Lowndes for his laxity.[13] His successor to the Lowndean chair George Peacock promised "to do his duty in a less lax manner than his predecessor", and although he struggled to get anyone to attend his lectures on pure mathematics, his lectures on practical astronomy were well attended.[18] However his translation as Dean of Ely three years later meant that he was largely absent from his chair, which he was severely criticised for retaining.[19][20] Despite his record, in 1816 Lax was described as holding the professorship with "great reputation".[21]
During Lax's time at Cambridge: "the mathematicians were in the saddle, and it would be difficult to dispute the judgement that they controlled Cambridge studies almost as completely as the logicians had done in the Middle Ages."[22] In early nineteenth century Cambridge "the discipline of mathematics was at the very heart".[23] Lax's professorship required him to examine students annually for the Smith's Prize, including John Herschel, Adam Sedgwick, George Biddell Airy, William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire among others.[24][25]
Newtonian mathematics teaching as examplified by "Cambridge traditionalists" such as Lax and his generation began to wane as the Georgian era drew to a close.[18] In 1817 George Peacock successfully introduced the new French mathematics (such as Pierre-Simon Laplace and Joseph Louis Lagrange) into the Senate House Examinations. Peacock reported to John Herschel, "The introduction of d's into the papers excited much remark. Wood, Vince, Lax & Milner were very angry & threatened to protest against [the infiltration of] French mathematics."[26] For the traditionalists the struggle was more than one of intellectual difference as for them, "Newton's rational mechanics, fluxions, and experimental philosophy were an excellent antidote against materialism and atheism."[27] Despite this, from 1816 to 1824 Lax sat on the Peacock-led board that established Cambridge Observatory.[28]
See also: Royal Society
Lax was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society on 5th April 1796. He was nominated by the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne, Anthony Shepherd, Richard Farmer and William Wales.[29] However due to an enmity of the President Joseph Banks friends of Charles Hutton and Maskelyne such as Lax, but also Samuel Vince and Thomas Mudge frequently saw their submissions for publications overlooked.[30] If any of them submitted papers to the Society "they had the honour of having them carefully lodged in the archives of the Society, where the world in general, or even the members of the Society, would derive no more benefit from them than if they were deposited at the centre of the earth."[31]
Lax delivered two papers to the Royal Society which were published in Philosophical Transactions. In 1799 he delivered A Method of finding the Latitude of a place, by Means of two Altitudes of the Sun and the Time elapsed betwixt the Observations, described as "a subject of no great importance" by the Philosophical Magazine but lauded elsewhere as containing "several valuable remarks".[32][33] In his 1809 work On A Method of Examining the Divisions of Astronomical Instruments Lax wrote that no instrument was to be trusted without "previous examination".[34] This argument had an influence on scientists such as Henry Cavendish and was described as an "ingenious...examination" in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia.[35][36] However the method described by Lax "though very ingenious, requires great labour and time, and is inferior in accuracy and efficiency to that which was adopted by Mr. Troughton for tabulating the errors of the primary divisions of circular instruments."[37] It was also criticised for "greatly resembl[ing]" a method first explicated by the Duke of Chaulnes.[38] In 1807 Lax delivered Remarks on a Supposed Error in the Elements of Euclid to the Royal Society, however it was not published in Philosophical Transactions. In it Lax defended the Greek mathematician against a charge levied at him by Georges-Louis Le Sage in 1756. Lax's defence was applauded by the British Critic as 'perfectly sound'.[39]
See also: Board of Longitude
Lax served on the Board of Longitude in 1802 and 1803.[40] Lax was elected to the Board again in 1818 as part of an overhaul that saw Thomas Young become its secretary. Lax continued as a member until the Board was dissolved in 1828.[41] His role saw him paid £100 per annum if he attended all meetings. Lax published a set of tables for use with the Nautical Almanac for finding latitude and longitude. These were published by the Board of Longitude in 1821, however they were not considered to be of much practical use for seamen but were described by The Nautical Magazine as a "very meritorious attempt to solve the problems of nautical astronomy by one uniform system."[42][43] Lax received "one thousand or twelve hundred pounds" for his tables from the Board.[44] They were intended to replace Nevil Maskelyne's Requisite Tables.[45] However the extraordinarily accurate chronometers of John Harrison were generally available from the 1820s onwards, rendering the lunar distance method immaterial. Edward Sabine criticised errors in Lax's work.[46]
As a scientific member of the Board, Lax was one of eighteen men who were: "ultimately responsible for the form and contents of the Nautical Almamac. It would have been difficult in these years to select another group equally eminent in their field." according to Edmund Dews.[47] Lax was notable for his strong attendance record at the quarterly meetings, not missing a single meeting between 1822-25, a record equalled by only three other members, however non-attendance of meetings resulted in not being paid.[48] In 1828 Lax's "An easy method of correcting the lunar distance, on account of the spheroidal figure of the earth" was published in the Nautical Almanac. After the Board elected to dissolve itself Lax unsuccessfully attempted to convince George Biddell Airy to aid in a campaign for its restoration.[49] In 1834 a new edition of his nautical tables was published posthumously.[50] Eva Germaine Rimington Taylor wrote that all of Lax's works were "of value to the art of navigation".[51]
On 28th February 1801 Lax was granted the livings as vicar of Marsworth, Buckinghamshire and of Great Wymondley with St Ippolyts near Hitchin, Hertfordshire "after some years of teaching work".[52] At St Ipps he erected a private observatory which he had transported from Cambridge and had originally belonged to Isaac Newton.[53][54] The Monthly Magazine included it in its list of the 21 most notable private observatories in England in 1813.[55] The Philosophical Magazine describes Lax as spending the last thirty years of his life occupied with "studies and pursuits connected with the advancement of astronomy."[56]
When he arrived in 1801 Lax planted trees in the vicarage grounds in the form of his initials "W L" in its grounds.[57] That same year he created a park opposite to the vicarage similar to The Backs of Cambridge, built a replica of Trinity College Bridge, dammed the stream and opened springs to form a lake which was used for ice skating in the winter.[57] In September 1801 he married Margaret Cradock (11 June 1776-20 Jan 1854), the eldest daughter of Sheldon Cradock of Hartforth who was the lord of the manor at Lax's home village of Ravensworth at the church in Gilling West.[58][59][60] Lax was a proposer of Robert Woodhouse, Henry Coddington, Herbert Marsh and John Bell for Royal Society fellowship, the latter being one of Lax's closest friends, and he was a keen supporter of George Biddell Airy throughout Airy's career.[61][62][63][64][65] Lax was a chief supporter of the Whig John Romilly, 1st Baron Romilly's parliamentary bid.[66]
His brother Thomas Lax (1770–1 Apr 1851) remained in Ravensworth all of his life and and was a gentleman farmer who became a record holding breeder of shorthorn cattle and at one point was credited with the best shorthorn herd in the country. He was "unquestionably a great breeder".[67] He also acted as Chief Constable of the wapentake of Gilling West. The parish church has a memorial dedicated to Thomas Lax, as well as a memorial dedicated to Thomas and William's mother.
Lax died "suddenly" on 28 October 1836 at his home in St Ipp's.[68] His obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine reported that "his constitution was broken in early life [which] made his last years a period of weakness and suffering, so that his physical strength was unequal to the workings of his active mind. To whatever Professor Lax applied, he made himself completely master of it...[a] most excellent and amiable man."[69] He left behind a widow and two daughters, the eldest Margaret and the younger Marian or Marianne (died 21 June 1873).[70][71] In 1826 Margaret was married to Andrew Amos at St Ibb's Church, and via that line Lax is the grandfather of Sheldon Amos and the great grandfather of Maurice Amos.[72][73]