James William Hunter of Thurston Manor FRSE (May 1783 – 3 December 1844) was a Scottish landowner, inventor and agricultural improver. His main claim to fame is the improvement to the mechanical odometer in 1827, creating a single-handed and single-wheeled device, setting a series of three 100-tooth cogs against 101-tooth cogs, attached to a wheel of circumference either 6 or 10 feet. This created a very convenient apparatus for land measurement, and is still the basis for modern day mechanical surveying odometers. The larger version was attached to the rear of a carriage and was the first known instrument calculating total vehicle distance travelled in a precise and visually clear way.

Life

He was born at Thurston Manor near

Innerwick Innerwick ( gd, Inbhir Mhuice) is a coastal civil parish and small village, which lies in the east of East Lothian, from Dunbar and approximately from Edinburgh. Name The name Innerwick is of Anglo-saxon origin and means inland farm or dwel ...

in East Lothian in 1783, the son of Robert Hunter of Thurston Manor (d.1810) and his wife Isabella Ord. The family was related to the Hunters of Hunterston. From around 1798 he served in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

then returned to Scotland to run the family estates following the death of his father. In 1820 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were

Thomas Charles Hope Thomas Charles Hope (21 July 1766 – 13 June 1844) was a British physician, chemist and lecturer. He proved the existence of the element strontium, and gave his name to Hope's Experiment, which shows that water reaches its maximum density a ...

, Sir David Brewster and

Basil Hall Basil Hall (31 December 1788 – 11 September 1844) was a British naval officer from Scotland, a traveller, and an author. He was the second son of Sir James Hall, 4th Baronet, an eminent man of science. Biography Although his family home was ...

. In 1839 he appeared in the trial of Alexander Humphreys in his false claim to be Earl of Stirling. At this time he is listed under the address of his Edinburgh townhouse: 10 Moray Place. He died in Leamington (where the family held a second estate) on 3 December 1844. He is buried in

in East Lothian with his family. His will is held in the National Archive at Kew.

Family

He was married to Elizabeth Jennings. They had seven children: four boys and three girls. * James William Hunter of Thurston Manor (1812-1879)(''s.p.'') * Robert Francis Hunter (1815-1855) Major of 71st Highland Light Infantry regiment. Killed at Kertch in the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

. * Richard (1816-1885) Colonel in the Honorable East India Company's 7th Madras Cavalry. (Succeeded his brother at Thurston."Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, landed & Official Classes", 29th edition, London, 1903, p.794.) * John Alexander Hunter (1820-1848). * Isabella Hunter (b.1813) * Sarah Elizabeth (b.1819). * Margaret Eleanor (b.1824) Their daughter Sarah Elizabeth is said to have married

George Seton George Seton of Careston FRSE FSA (25 June 1822 – 14 November 1908) was a Scottish philanthropist and genealogist. Early life Seton was born in Perth, Scotland, the son of Captain George Seton, an officer in the East India Company, and ...

of Careston FRSE. He was distant cousin to Very Rev Andrew Hunter FRSE.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, James Wiliam 1783 births 1844 deaths People from East Lothian Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Scottish landowners Scottish inventors 19th-century British businesspeople