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John Farey Sr. (24 September 1766 – 6 January 1826) was an English
geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...
and writer best known for
Farey sequence
In mathematics, the Farey sequence of order ''n'' is the sequence of completely reduced fractions, either between 0 and 1, or without this restriction, which when in lowest terms have denominators less than or equal to ''n'', arranged in ord ...
, a mathematical construct that is named after him.
Biography
Youth and early career
Farey was born on 24 September 1766 at
Woburn in
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...
to John Farey (1728–1798) and his second wife, Rachel (''née'' Wright) (1732–1804), a Wesleyan Methodist.
He was educated at
Halifax in
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
, and showed such aptitude in mathematics, drawing and surveying, that he was brought under the notice of
John Smeaton
John Smeaton (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792) was a British civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist. Smeaton was the fir ...
(1724–1792).
After his education he moved to London, where he had relatives, and worked there for a number of years, during which time he met and married, Sophia Hubert, (1770–1830). While in London they had their first child
John Farey Jr
John Farey Jr. (20 March 1791 – 17 July 1851) was an English mechanical engineering, consulting engineer and patent agent, known for his pioneering contributions in the field of mechanical engineering.Alec Skempton.Farey, Jr., John" in: ''A Bi ...
.
Alec Skempton
Sir Alec Westley Skempton (4 June 1914 – 9 August 2001) was an English civil engineer internationally recognised, along with Karl Terzaghi, as one of the founding fathers of the engineering discipline of soil mechanics. He established the soi ...
.
Farey, Jr., John
" in: ''A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland: 1500–1830.'' 2002. p. 223-224 They went on to have eight more children, two of whom died in infancy. One of his children, Marianne Farey, was the mother of
Sophie Gengembre Anderson
Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823 – 10 March 1903) was a French-born British artist who specialised in genre painting of children and women, typically in rural settings. She began her career as a lithographer and painter of portraits, collaborat ...
, the noted artist.
Land agent in Woburn and consulting surveyor in London
In 1792 Farey was appointed surveyor and land agent
to
Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford
Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford (23 July 1765 – 2 March 1802) was an English aristocrat and Whig politician, responsible for much of the development of central Bloomsbury.
Life
Francis Russell, eldest son of Francis Russell, Marquess of ...
for his
Woburn estates. After the death of the duke, Farey in 1802 moved to London, and, after first contemplating emigrating or taking a farm in the country, he settled there as a consulting surveyor and geologist.
That he was enabled to take this step was due largely to his acquaintance with the geologist
William Smith, who in 1801 had been employed by the duke of Bedford in works of draining and irrigation. The duke, appreciating Smith's knowledge of the strata, commissioned him in 1802 to explore the margin of the chalk-hills south of Woburn in order to determine the true succession of the strata; and he instructed Farey to accompany him. Farey has remarked that Smith was his Master and Instructor in Mineral Surveying, and his subsequent publications show how well he had profited by the teachings he received.
In 1805, he succeeded the agriculturist
Arthur Young as Secretary of the
Smithfield Club Smithfield may refer to:
Places Australia
*Electoral district of Smithfield, a former electoral district of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
* Smithfield, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
* Smithfield, Queensland, a northern suburb of ...
. His surveying work took him all over the country and he was in much demand from landowners wishing to improve their estates, or exploit the minerals they held. His work on
economic geology then was of importance in the burgeoning
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
by locating new resources of coal and metal ores.
Work
Writings
Farey was a prolific writer, and Professor
Hugh Torrens
Hugh Simon Torrens (born 1940) is a British historian of geology and paleontology, and Emeritus Professor of History of Science and Technology at Keele University.
Torrens received a bachelor's degree from the University of Oxford and a PhD from ...
(see references below) has traced around 270 papers by him, quadrupling the number given by the Royal Society's ''Catalogue of Scientific Papers''. He wrote on all manner of subjects, ranging from horticulture, geology, meteorology, metrology, currency decimalisation, music and mathematics to pacifism.
He was an important contributor to ''
Rees's Cyclopædia
Rees's ''Cyclopædia'', in full ''The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature'' was an important 19th-century British encyclopaedia edited by Rev. Abraham Rees (1743–1825), a Presbyterian minister and scholar w ...
'' with articles on canals, mineralogy, surveying and a number of the scientific and mathematical basis of sound. His Canals article is the largest in the work, being some 210,000 words. He contributed similarly to the ''
Edinburgh Encyclopedia
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of ...
''. Various nineteenth-century biographical sources, including the ''
Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'', claimed wrongly that he wrote the Rees article on Steam. It was actually written by his son
John Farey Jr.
John Farey Jr. (20 March 1791 – 17 July 1851) was an English mechanical engineering, consulting engineer and patent agent, known for his pioneering contributions in the field of mechanical engineering.Alec Skempton.Farey, Jr., John" in: ''A Bio ...
He contributed articles on music to periodicals, as well as around 350 articles on the topic the two encyclopaedias. They concerned the mathematical relationship of note values and musical temperament. He devised a notation which allowed a sound to be expressed by the sum of three small values Σ + ''f'' + ''m''. He made great use of the researches of
Marmaduke Overend (music theorist and organist) (c1730-1790), whose MS were then in the library of the
Royal Institution
The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...
In 1809 Farey met
William Martin who had published work on Derbyshire fossils, to investigate whether they could create a joint geological map of Derbyshire. Martin however was too ill to meet a second time and he died the following year.
Farey's best known work is ''General View of the Agriculture and Minerals of Derbyshire'' (3 volumes 1811–17) for the
Board of Agriculture. In the first of these volumes (1811) he gave an account of the upper part of the British series of strata, and an exposition of the Carboniferous and other strata of Derbyshire. In this work, and in a paper published in the ''Philosophical Magazine'', vol. 51, 1818, p. 173, on 'Mr Smith's Geological Claims stated', he called attention to the importance of the discoveries of
William Smith.
Farey sequence
As well as being remembered by historians of geology, his name is more widely known by the
Farey sequence
In mathematics, the Farey sequence of order ''n'' is the sequence of completely reduced fractions, either between 0 and 1, or without this restriction, which when in lowest terms have denominators less than or equal to ''n'', arranged in ord ...
which he noted as a result of his interest in the mathematics of sound (''Philosophical Magazine'', vol. 47, 1816, pp. 385–386).
Farey died in London. Subsequently, Sophia, his widow, offered his geological collection to the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. The museum rejected the collection, and it was dispersed and broken up.
Selected publications
* John Farey, ''A General View of the Agriculture and Minerals of Derbyshire'', 3 volumes 1811–17. Peak District Mines Historical Society, 1989. Reprint of 1811 Edition.
;Articles, a selection
* John Farey, "canals", "mineralogy", "surveying" in: ''
Rees's Cyclopædia
Rees's ''Cyclopædia'', in full ''The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature'' was an important 19th-century British encyclopaedia edited by Rev. Abraham Rees (1743–1825), a Presbyterian minister and scholar w ...
''
;Publications about Farey and his work
*
[This article includes a brief family history and a family tree.]
*
*
References
;Attribution
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farey, John Sr.
English geologists
1766 births
1826 deaths
People from Woburn, Bedfordshire