James Inman (1776–1859), an English mathematician and
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
, and author of ''Inman's Nautical Tables''.
Early years
Inman was born at Tod Hole in
Garsdale
Garsdale is a dale or valley in the south east of Cumbria, England, historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. It is now within the South Lakeland local government district, but is still a "Yorkshire Dale" for planning purposes. In t ...
, then in the
West Riding of Yorkshire
The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...
, the younger son of Richard Inman and Jane Hutchinson. He was educated at
Sedbergh
Sedbergh ( or ) is a town and civil parish in Cumbria, England. The 2001 census gave the parish a population of 2,705, increasing at the 2011 census to 2,765. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies about east of Kendal, no ...
and
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...
, graduating as first Smith's prizeman and
Senior Wrangler
The Senior Frog Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain."
Specifically, it is the person who a ...
for 1800. Among his close college friends was
Henry Martyn
Henry Martyn (18 February 1781 – 16 October 1812) was an Anglican priest and missionary to the peoples of India and Persia. Born in Truro, Cornwall, he was educated at Truro Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge. A chance encount ...
.
After graduating with first class honours in 1800, Inman intended to undertake missionary work in the Middle East, in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, but due to a declaration of war could travel no further than
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
, where he continued to study
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
.
Astronomer for Matthew Flinders, 1803–04
Returning to England, the
Board of Longitude
The Commissioners for the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea, or more popularly Board of Longitude, was a British government body formed in 1714 to administer a scheme of prizes intended to encourage innovators to solve the problem of finding lon ...
appointed him as replacement astronomer (the original astronomer, suffering from severe seasickness, was discharged en route to Australia) on the expedition of under
Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to u ...
charting Australian waters in 1803–1804. Arriving at Sydney too late to join in Flinders' circumnavigation of Australia, he assisted in concluding the expedition. At this time he became a firm friend of Flinders' nephew,
John Franklin
Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through ...
, then midshipman. He also befriended the ''Investigator's'' artist,
William Westall
William Westall (12 October 1781 – 22 January 1850) was a British landscape artist best known as one of the first artists to work in Australia.
Early life
Westall was born in Hertford and grew up in London, mostly Sydenham and Hampstead. ...
, for whom he later wrote letters of introduction. While on board the
East Indiaman
East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India trading companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. The term is used to refer to vesse ...
'' Warley'' for his return to Britain, he participated in the
Battle of Pulo Auro
The Battle of Pulo Aura was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, fought on 14 February 1804, in which a large convoy of Honourable East India Company (HEIC) East Indiamen, well-armed merchant ships, intimidated, drove off and chased ...
. Here he temporarily commanded a party of
lascar
A lascar was a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, British Somaliland, or other land east of the Cape of Good Hope, who was employed on European ships from the 16th century until the middle of the 2 ...
pikemen
A pike is a very long thrusting spear formerly used in European warfare from the Late Middle Ages and most of the Early Modern Period, and were wielded by foot soldiers deployed in pike square formation, until it was largely replaced by bayon ...
.
Professor, Royal Naval College
He was ordained into the Anglican ministry in 1805 when he gained his MA. Three years later he received an appointment as Professor of Nautical Mathematics at the Royal Naval College. In 1821 he published ''Navigation and Nautical Astronomy for Seamen''; these nautical mathematical tables, known as Inman's Nautical Tables, remained in use for many years. In the third edition (1835) he introduced a new table of
haversine
The versine or versed sine is a trigonometric function found in some of the earliest (Sanskrit ''Aryabhatia'',. 2nd ed. 1989. (Fourth edition )) to simplify the calculation of distances between two points on the surface of the earth using
spherical trigonometry
Spherical trigonometry is the branch of spherical geometry that deals with the metrical relationships between the sides and angles of spherical triangles, traditionally expressed using trigonometric functions. On the sphere, geodesics are gr ...
. (For details of the calculation, see
Haversine formula The haversine formula determines the great-circle distance between two points on a sphere given their longitudes and latitudes. Important in navigation, it is a special case of a more general formula in spherical trigonometry, the law of haversines, ...
.)
At his suggestion, in 1810 the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
established a
School of Naval Architecture
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compul ...
; the Admiralty also appointed Inman its first principal. In 1812 he conducted experiments with Flinders which led to the invention of the Flinders Bar, used for marine compass correction. At the same time as teaching in the school and publishing mathematical texts for the use of his pupils, he translated a French text on the architecture of shipbuilding, and continued his own studies, gaining his doctorate in Divinity in 1820. In recognition of his work in nautical astronomy he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Astronomical Society
(Whatever shines should be observed)
, predecessor =
, successor =
, formation =
, founder =
, extinction =
, merger =
, merged =
, type = NGO ...
.
He also directed the design and construction of no less than ten British warships, of which he was proud to state that none ever had the slightest mishap due to an error of design or form.
He retired in 1839, but continued living in Portsmouth until his death twenty years later, on 7 February 1859, aged 83.
Family and legacy
His wife Mary, daughter of Richard Williams, vicar of
All Saints' Church, Oakham
All Saints' Church, Oakham is a parish church in the Church of England in Oakham, Rutland. It is Grade I listed.
History
The spire of Oakham parish church dominates distant views of the town for several miles in all directions. The impres ...
,
Rutland
Rutland () is a ceremonial county and unitary authority in the East Midlands, England. The county is bounded to the west and north by Leicestershire, to the northeast by Lincolnshire and the southeast by Northamptonshire.
Its greatest len ...
, was a direct descendant of Hannah Ayscough, the mother of
Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the great ...
. James and Mary Inman had seven children. Their eldest son was James Williams Inman (1809–1895), Cambridge BA 1833, MA 1836, headmaster of
The King's School, Grantham
The King's School is a British grammar school with academy status, in the market town of Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. The school's history can be traced to 1329, and was re-endowed by Richard Foxe in 1528. Located on Brook Street, the sch ...
. Their youngest son Henry Inman (1816–1895), was founder and first commander of the
South Australia Police
South Australia Police (SAPOL) is the police force of the Australian state of South Australia. SAPOL is an independent statutory agency of the Government of South Australia directed by the Commissioner of Police, who reports to the Minister for ...
Sir John Franklin
Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through t ...
's first North American expedition he named Inman Harbour "after my friend the Professor at the Royal Naval College". During Franklin's second Arctic voyage in 1826 his surveyor named the Inman River, northwest of
Coppermine River
The Coppermine River is a river in the North Slave and Kitikmeot regions of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Canada. It is long. It rises in Lac de Gras, a small lake near Great Slave Lake, and flows generally north to Coronation Gulf, ...
, Canada, after Inman. In December 1829 a headland of perpendicular cliffs at
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla G ...
* ''Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry'', 1810
* ''A Treatise on Shipbuilding, with Explanations and Demonstrations respecting the Architectura Navalis Mercatoria, by Frederick Henry de Chapman, . . . translated into English, with explanatory notes, and a few Remarks on the Construction of Ships of War''
* ''The Scriptural Doctrine of Divine Grace: a Sermon preached before the University'' Cambridge, 8vo, 1820
*
* ''Navigation and Nautical Astronomy for the use of British Seamen'', 1821 (Third edition with haversine logarithms 1835–1836)
* ''An Introduction to Naval Gunnery'', 1826
* ''Plane and Spherical Trigonometry'', 1826
* ''Formulæ and Rules for making Calculations on Plans of Ships'' London, 8vo, 1849
Oxford 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 ...
'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008. Retrieved 4 January 2009