Whewell, WILLIAM, D.D., was born on 24th May 1794 at Lancaster. His father intended him for his own trade—that of a joiner; but the boy, having excelled at school in mathematics, went up in 1812 to Cambridge as an exhibitor of Trinity College, and, after gaining the Chancellor's medal for the English prize poem in 1814, graduated in 1816 as second wrangler and second Smith's prizeman. He became a fellow and tutor of Trinity, where also for many years he acted as a successful 'coach,' or private tutor; in 1820 was elected an F.R.S.; between 1828 and 1832 was professor of Mineralogy in Cambridge, and between 1838 and 1855 professor of Moral Theology. In 1841 he succeeded Dr Wordsworth as Master of Trinity, and in the same year was President of the British Association at its meeting at Plymouth. He was also for a time President of the Geological Society. In 1855 he became Vice-chancellor of the university of Cambridge. He died at Trinity on 6th March 1866—the result of a fall from his horse. A large, strong, erect man, with a red face and a loud voice, Whewell was an effective preacher and lecturer, though in both characters wanting in that something which wins and rivets the hearer. He was accused of being arrogant; and one remembers the well-known Chinese music story, and Sydney Smith's saying, 'Science is his forte and omniscience his foible.' His knowledge was indeed encyclopaedic, with all the defects of an encyclopaedia; his works included Astronomy and General Physics considered in Reference to Natural Theology (Bridgewater Treatise, 1833), History of the Inductive Sciences (3 vols. 1837), The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (2 vols. 1840), The Elements of Morality, including Polity (1855), The Plurality of Worlds (1853), and other writings on the tides, electricity, magnetism, heat, German church architecture, the History of Moral Philosophy in England, &c., besides translations of Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea, Auerbach's Professor's Wife, Grotius' Rights of Peace and War, and Plato.
See Todhunter's Whewell: an Account of his Writings (1876), and the Life by Mrs Stair Douglas (1881).