William George Spencer

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(William) George Spencer (1790–1866) was an English schoolmaster and tutor, known as a mathematical writer.

Life

Born at

Johann Pestalozzi, and for his teaching of girls, who made up at least half of his students, without difference of syllabus.[2] Illness forced him to give up school teaching around 1825, however, and he moved to Nottingham, taking up the lace business. He then returned to Derby, to work as a tutor.[3]

Spencer acted as secretary to the Derby Philosophical Society.[4] A dissenter who had quarrelled with the local Methodists, he attended a Quaker meeting-house.[3] He died in March 1866.[1]

Works

Page from Inventional Geometry (1860) by William George Spencer

In Inventional Geometry (1860), Spencer taught elementary geometry by a gradual transition from the concrete to the abstract, a method now considered to have been at least a generation ahead of its time. The book was republished in 1892 by his son, and was widely adopted as a textbook. He wrote also was the author of A System of Lucid Shorthand, in manuscript was completed from 1843, and first published in 1894.[1]

Family

By his wife Harriet, daughter of John Holmes, whom he married in 1819, Spencer had a better-known son, Herbert Spencer.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Lee, Sidney, ed. (1898). "Spencer, William George" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 53. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ISBN 978-1-134-52651-2
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-226-71200-0
    .
  4. ISBN 978-0-415-18184-6
    .

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1898). "Spencer, William George". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 53. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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