Andrew Pritchard

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Andrew Pritchard

FRSE (14 December 1804 – 24 November 1882) was an English naturalist and natural history dealer who made significant improvements to microscopy and studied microscopic organisms. His belief that God and nature were one led him to the Unitarians, a religious movement to which he and his family devoted much energy. He became a leading member of Newington Green Unitarian Church in north London
, and worked to build a school there.

Early life

Andrew Pritchard was born in Hackney, then a village just north of London on 14 December 1804, the son of John Pritchard and his wife, Ann Fleetwood. He was educated at St Saviour's Grammar School in Southwark.[1]

Pritchard was apprenticed to his cousin

Society of Arts and later, at the Great Exhibition, he gained a medal for his invention of the graphic telescope. Cornelius's brother was the painter John Varley, but Pritchard would have seen more of Cornelius's son Cromwell Fleetwood Varley, an engineer who pioneered the transatlantic telegraph cable.[citation needed
]

Microscopy

Pritchard set up as an optician, and also sold

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says his List of 2000 Microscopic Objects (1835) "is very important in the history of microscopy... his History of the Infusoria (1841) was long a standard work, and the impetus it gave to the study of biological science cannot be overestimated." ("Infusoria" is a term then current for aquatic micro-organisms.) This latter book was enlarged and revised by John Ralfs and other botanists; Pritchard in turn condensed Ralfs's contribution on the diatomaceæ (diatoms, a type of phytoplankton), and wrote many books and articles on "natural history as seen through the microscope, on optical instruments, and on patents"[2]

Religious ties

Pritchard held various

civil disabilities. Money aside, Pritchard would not have been able to attend an English university as a young man, for example, because the only two, Oxford and Cambridge, restricted entry to members of the Church of England. "No-one exists divorced from immediate and larger social environments. Dissenters led educational reform, especially in giving "lower orders" scientific knowledge and skill."[5]

Pritchard joined the congregation of Newington Green Unitarian Church, an establishment long connected with scientific enquiry (Joseph Priestley), education (Mary Wollstonecraft), and political dissent (Richard Price). He is described in the church's history as "the leading member of the congregation". From 1850 to 1873, he was its treasurer, during which time donations doubled. Before the passage of the Elementary Education Act 1870, compulsory schooling did not exist, so the church started a school to offer education to the village children. He led the Newington Green Conversation Society, membership restricted to 16, a successor to the Mutual Instruction Society.[6] Faraday was a frequent visitor.[7]

Death

Pritchard died in Highbury in London on 24 November 1882.

Family

He married Caroline Isabella Straker in 1829 and they had several children. His wife was chair of the chapel organisation,

Lawn Road Flats
.

Andrew and Caroline's son, Ion (died 1929) and daughter Marian (died 1908), continued the work of their parents at the Newington Green Unitarian Church.

liberal religion in general, and the development of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, were overarching themes. Ion was President of the Sunday School Association,[12] one of the precursors to the General Assembly. Marian in particular is described as an unsung heroine, and "one of the leaders of modern Unitarianism". She set up Oxford Summer Schools for the training of Sunday School teachers, and Winifred House Invalid Children's Convalescent Home.[13]

Works

  • 1830 with C.R. Goring. Microscopic illustrations of a few new, popular and diverting living objects with their natural history London, Whittaker, Treacher, & Co
  • 1834 The natural history of animalcules : containing descriptions of all the known species of
    Infusoria
     : with instructions for procuring and viewing them     London, Whittaker and Co.
  • 1837 with C.R. Goring. Micrographia : containing practical essays on reflecting, solar, oxy-hydrogen gas microscopes; micrometers; eye-pieces, &c. &c. London, Whittaker & Co.
  • 1847 MICROSCOPIC OBJECTS, animal vegetable mineral
  • 1854 with C.R. Goring. Notes on aquatic microscopic subjects of natural history : selected from the 'Microscopic Cabinet' ...illustrated by ten coloured engravings London : Whittaker & Co.

References

  1. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  2. ^ ONDB article
  3. ^ "He considered that scientific research must result in deeper awareness of religious truth, whilst the pursuit of religious truth can only be undertaken in the open minded spirit of scientific enquiry." From Thorncroft, Michael (1958). Trust in Freedom: The Story of Newington Green Unitarian Church 1708 – 1958. London: Private publication for the trustees of the church. p. 35.
  4. ^ ONDB entry
  5. ^ "CHARLES HENRY VANCE SMITH – MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE" by Peter B. Paisley in Microscopy Magazine, September 2010.
  6. ^ p23-24. Thorncroft, Michael (1958). Trust in Freedom: The Story of Newington Green Unitarian Church 1708 – 1958. London: Private publication for the trustees of the church. p. 35.
  7. ^ "CHARLES HENRY VANCE SMITH – MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE" by Peter B. Paisley in Microscopy Magazine, September 2010.
  8. ^ "CHARLES HENRY VANCE SMITH – MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE" by Peter B. Paisley in Microscopy Magazine, September 2010.
  9. ^ chapter 7 Thorncroft, Michael (1958). Trust in Freedom: The Story of Newington Green Unitarian Church 1708 – 1958. London: Private publication for the trustees of the church. p. 35.
  10. ^ List of library archives
  11. Essex Hall Yearbook of 1903
  12. ^ RELIGION AND LIBERTY. ADDRESSES AND PAPERS AT THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF UNITARIAN AND OTHER LIBERAL RELIGIOUS THINKERS AND WORKERS, HELD IN AMSTERDAM, SEPTEMBER, 1903. EDITED BY P. H. HUGENHOLTZ Jr. Leyden, 1904
  13. ^ Thorncroft, p28, and throughout ch7 "The Lights Go Out".

Sources

  • Bracegirdle, Brian (1998) Microscopical Mounts and Mounters, Quekett Microscopical Club, London
  • Nuttall, Robert (2006) "Marketing the achromatic microscope: Andrew Pritchard’s engiscope", Quekett Journal of Microscopy, 40:309–330.

Further reading

External links

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