Simpson, THOMAS

Simpson, THOMAS, one of the most eminent of the numerous non-academic mathematicians of England, was born on the 20th August 1710, at Market Bosworth in Leicestershire. His father was a stuff-weaver, and, intending his son to follow the same occupation, gave him little or no education. The son, however, had a taste for study, and embraced every opportunity for gratifying it. In consequence he quarrelled with his father and went to Nuneaton. Here he worked at his trade, and eked out his earnings by teaching an evening school and by casting nativities. The last occupation threatening to get him into difficulties, he removed to Derby, where he remained from 1733 to 1735 or 1736. Thence he went to London, and began teaching mathematics. In 1737 he published a Treatise of Fluxions; in 1740 a Treatise on the Nature and Laws of Chance, and a volume of Essays on Several Subjects in Speculative and Mixed Mathematics; in 1742 the Doctrine of Annuities and Reversions; in 1743 Mathematical Dissertations on Physical and Analytical Subjects; in 1745 a Treatise of Algebra; in 1747 Elements of Geometry; in 1748 Trigonometry Plane and Spherical; in 1750 the Doctrine and Application of Fluxions; in 1752 Select Exercises for Young Proficients in the Mathematics; and in 1757 Miscellaneous Tracts. He was a frequent contributor to the Ladies' Diary, of which he was the editor from 1754 to 1760. In 1743 he was appointed professor of Mathematics in the Royal Academy at Woolwich, and in 1745 he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society. He died on the 14th May 1761. A biographical notice by Dr Charles Hutton, giving some curious details of Simpson's life, is prefixed to Davis' edition (1805) of the Doctrine and Application of Fluxions.