(William) George Spencer (1790–1866) was an English schoolmaster and tutor, known as a mathematical writer.

Life

Born at

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...

in 1790, he was the son of Matthew Spencer (1762–1827), schoolmaster at Derby, by his wife Catherine Taylor; Thomas Spencer (1796–1853) was his younger brother. He was educated at his father's school in Derby. After assisting his father he began, at the age of 17, to take private pupils in algebra, Euclid, astronomy, physics, and other mathematical subjects, and continued to teach throughout life. As an educator he was noted as a follower of

Johann Pestalozzi Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (, ; 12 January 1746 – 17 February 1827) was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach. He founded several educational institutions both in German- and French-speaking r ...

, and for his teaching of girls, who made up at least half of his students, without difference of syllabus. Illness forced him to give up school teaching around 1825, however, and he moved to

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

, taking up the lace business. He then returned to Derby, to work as a tutor. Spencer acted as secretary to the

Derby Philosophical Society The Derby Philosophical Society was a club for gentlemen in Derby founded in 1783 by Erasmus Darwin. The club had many notable members and also offered the first institutional library in Derby that was available to some section of the public. P ...

. A dissenter who had quarrelled with the local Methodists, he attended a Quaker meeting-house. He died in March 1866.

Works

In ''Inventional Geometry'' (1860), Spencer taught elementary geometry by a gradual transition from the concrete to the abstract, a method now considered to have been at least a generation ahead of its time. The book was republished in 1892 by his son, and was widely adopted as a textbook. He wrote also was the author of ''A System of Lucid Shorthand'', in manuscript was completed from 1843, and first published in 1894.

Family

By his wife Harriet, daughter of John Holmes, whom he married in 1819, Spencer had a better-known son,

Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest" ...

Notes

Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Spencer, William George 1790 births 1866 deaths Schoolteachers from Derbyshire People from Derby