Richard Towneley

Richard Towneley (10 October 1629 – 22 January 1707) was an English

Richard Towneley was born at Nocton Hall, in Lincolnshire, on 10 October 1629, eldest son of Charles Towneley (1600–1644) and Mary Trappes (1599–1690).

The Towneleys were prominent members of the

In 1653, Richard married Mary Paston (1631–1672), a fellow Catholic from an influential Norfolk family, best known for the Paston Letters, a key primary historical source for the period 1460 to 1510. Before her death in 1672, they had eleven children, including Clement (1654–1666), Charles (1658–1712), Mary Ann (1660–1712) and Frances (1663–1728).^[4]

Career

Towneley is thought to have attended college in the Low Countries, almost certainly the French University of Douai, where his brothers were educated.^[5] Confiscated in 1652, the family estates were returned after the 1660 Restoration, although they had to sell Nocton Hall. This allowed Towneley to devote himself to the study of mathematics and natural philosophy, leaving his younger brother Charles (1631–1712) to manage his estates.^[6]

Collaboration with Robert Boyle

Towneley published little of his own work but in May 1667 he sent a letter to the Royal Society "touching the invention of dividing a foot into many thousand parts for mathematical purposes". Adrien Auzout had claimed a French first in inventing the micrometer. Towneley wrote to point out that Auzout was not the first person to have developed such a device as the English astronomer William Gascoigne had developed one before the Civil War. Towneley had produced an improved version of that micrometer and was using it in Lancashire.^[8] The Royal Society showed great interest in Towneley's micrometer and he sent them one made in Lancashire by one of his tenants. Robert Hooke reported on it in November of the same year as "A description of an instrument for dividing a foot into many thousand parts, and thereby measuring the diameter of planets to a great exactness", with an illustration reproduced here.^[9]

During the winter of 1664–65, the skies of the northern hemisphere were dominated by a brilliant

As late as 1965, the historian Charles Webster was able to describe Towneley as "this mysterious figure of seventeenth-century science" due to the fact that information about him was scattered through many works.[12] Only one complete piece of work by Towneley survives, titled "Short Considerations uppon Mr. Hookes Attempt for the Explication of Waters Ascent into small Glasse Canes with praeliminarie Discourse", and dated Ap. 20, 1667. This autograph manuscript was lot 128 in a sale of the Towneley family's manuscripts sold in 1883.^[13] According to Webster it is now in Yale University Library.^[14] Hooke's first publication, in 1661, was a pamphlet on capillary action.^[15]

In 1970, Derek Howse brought to more general attention a collection of some seventy letters written between 1673 and 1688 by the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, to Towneley. This collection of letters was acquired by the Royal Society in 1891.^[16] Professor Eric G. Forbes (1933–1984) recognised that a large amount of Flamsteed's correspondence had survived and began to collect and collate copies. This important work was continued after his death and was published from 1995.^[17] The Flamsteed correspondence explains how Towneley and Flamsteed began a correspondence that provides a unique insight into the early years of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

Flamsteed's first regular correspondent was John Collins, who corresponded extensively with many mathematicians including Towneley.^[18] From their correspondence it appears Flamsteed visited London in June 1670, when Jonas Moore gave him the micrometer illustrated by Hooke in 1667. Both Collins and Moore advised Flamsteed to contact Towneley to make best use of the micrometer, and Flamsteed first wrote to Towneley on 24 January 1671.^[19]

Flamsteed first visited Towneley Hall in 1671 to use the library there. Much later, when writing to William Molyneux, Flamsteed recorded how Christopher Towneley and Moore had collected the papers of Gascoigne, along with some of Horrocks and Crabtree. These eventually went into the library at Towneley. Flamsteed claimed that reading Gascoigne's papers in less than two hours provided him with the foundations for his understanding of optics.^[20] He returned for a longer stay in September 1672 to make measurements, together with Towneley, of the conjunction of the planet Mars with fixed stars with the intention of estimating the size of the solar system. Due to adverse weather conditions, Flamsteed only achieved his objective when he returned to Derbyshire later the same week.^[21]

Astronomy at Towneley Hall

Richard's uncle Christopher Towneley had befriended a number of the northern astronomers, including Jeremiah Horrocks, William Crabtree, William Gascoigne and John Stephenson, and collected their papers.^[22] As an astronomer Towneley carried on the tradition of observation, that had been established in the north of England by Horrocks, Crabtree and Gascoigne based on the work of Johannes Kepler.^[23]

Towneley's main astronomical work was measuring

Once at Greenwich, Flamsteed asked Towneley to help him prove that the Earth rotated at a constant speed. Towneley designed a novel clock

Flamsteed wrote often to Towneley about the clocks, which were made to run for a year between windings. It proved difficult to keep both clocks running for a whole year and, in January 1678, Tompion replaced the original escapement with one of his own design. The clocks eventually went for four years without stopping and Flamsteed was able to prove to his own satisfaction that the Earth rotated at a constant speed.[29] Although Towneley and Tompion could be considered the first people to attempt to make a deadbeat escapement, it was only in about 1715 that George Graham created one that was truly successful.^[30]

Systematic rainfall measurement

In 1977, British meteorologists celebrated the tercentenary of the start of systematic rainfall recording in the British Isles by Richard Towneley.^[31] Towneley began making regular measurements of rainfall in January 1677 and published records of monthly rainfall for 15 years from that time in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1694. In the report, Towneley described the measurements in great detail "to show you how little trouble there is to this task; which therefore I hope some of your ingenious friends may be persuaded to undertake". He wrote that at Towneley in Lancashire there was twice the quantity of rain that fell in Paris. He further claimed that the eastern parts of Lancashire were subject to more rain than Yorkshire due to clouds driven by south-west winds falling as rain on the high ground that divides the two counties. Towneley called for more measurements elsewhere to test the claim that his area had more rain than in other parts of the country.^[32] Only William Derham appears to have taken up Towneley's challenge and they jointly published the rainfall measurements for Towneley and Upminster in Essex for the years 1697 to 1704.^[33]

A local historian has suggested that Towneley was possibly prompted to maintain rainfall records in support of

A collection of his remaining scientific papers are now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.^[37]

Later life

When

Richard Towneley died at York on 22 January 1707, and was buried at St Peter's, Burnley.^[1]

References