ABSTRACT
George Donn, teacher of practical mathematics, kept a mathematical school at Bideford, Devon, in 1721 or earlier. Gentleman’s Magazine, No. 74, p. 499, calls him ‘one of the best teachers of arithmetic, navigation and dialling, in his time’. According to his son Benjamin, George Donn used instruments of his own making and engraved an Analemma on brass which afterwards was improved by Benjamin. Two sons of George proved to be outstanding mathematicians. Abraham, born at Bideford in 1718, was educated at Plymouth Grammar School, and later joined his father as assistant teacher. Gentleman’s Magazine calls him ‘an ingenious mathematician’. He wrote several books on mathematics, but he died in 1746 and they were published by his brother Benjamin. Benjamin Donn, born at Bideford in 1729, was the most outstanding of the three Donns. He was evidently educated by his father and after the death of his brother assisted his father in teaching, at the same time contributing articles on astronomy and mathematics to the Gentleman’s Diary, edited by J. Badder and T. Peat, up to 1756. According to the Gentleman’s Magazine B. Donn moved to Kingston, near Taunton, Somerset, and about ‘the year 1756 opened an Academy, where he taught with great success many of the first ornaments of the siderial science; amongst whom was the late Mr. Benjamin Bishop, Master of Sir John Cass’s School, Aldgate, and George Brown, an artist of note, late of Norwich’. It appears that the Gentleman’s Magazine made a mistake in the date, as B. Donn, according to his own works, was at Bideford till 1760 and then moved to Bristol. He moved to Kingston from Bristol much later. Whilst at Bideford he started writing his Accountant and Geometrician, which he published at Bristol in 1765. There is an advertisement in the book: ‘Soon will be opened by the Author in the Library House 1 at Bristol, a Mathematical School, in which young Gentlemen and Ladies may be taught, in a rational manner, any branch of the Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, according to the new improvements. Such Gentlemen and Ladies as are not inclined to attend at the School, may have private lectures at their own houses.’ He claims in the introduction to bring all the branches of mathematics ‘into a regular course as they depend on each other, so the students will learn them with more ease, pleasure and dispatch’. 1 He was still at Bristol in 1787, as in that year he published ‘Ge-organon’, a new instrument invented by him for the study of geography. He styled himself as ‘Teacher of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Bristol’. He also added an ‘e’ to his name (Donne) as the name was written in the seventeenth century. The information about his Bristol Academy given in the D.N.B. contradicts the statements made by himself. D.N.B. says that B. Donn was elected librarian of the Bristol Library in 1768. According to D.N.B. Donn wanted to convert the Library into a ‘Mathematical Academy, but the corporation did not join in his enthusiasm and students were not invited’. D.N.B. states that he started his own Academy in the park near St. Michael’s Church. In 1769 Donn published An Epitome of Natural and Experimental Philosophy from which it is quite clear that he had his Academy in the Library House as he advertised in 1765. At the back page of An Epitome etc. (1769) we find the following advertisement: ‘At the Mathematical Academy, in the Library House, in King Street, Bristol: Young Gentlemen are boarded and taught Writing, Arithmetic, Book-keeping, Navigation and Geography. Also the elements of Algebra, Altimetry, Architecture, Astronomy, Chances, Conics, Decimals, Dialling, Fluxions, Fortification, Gauging, Geometry, Gunnery, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Levelling, Mechanics, Mensuration, Optics, Perspective, Pneumatics, Ship-building, Surveying, Trigonometry Plane and Spherical, with the use of Mathematical and Philosophical instruments. 2 Also courses of Experimental Philosophy read on reasonable terms.’ Whether his Academy was really coeducational as he announced in 1765 is doubtful. He lectured to both sexes in his public lectures on Natural Philosophy and other subjects (see Chapter VII) but we have no evidence that girls attended lessons in his Academy together with boys. He boarded only boys, but it is possible that girls attended as day pupils. 1 If they did, his Academy was the first co-educational school in England for adolescents and young people. He continued to lecture and teach after his move to Kingston, near Taunton. Besides being an author, teacher, lecturer and instrument maker, he was also a surveyor and publisher of maps. For his map of Devonshire, the best in his time, he received £100 premium from the Society of Arts in 1765. He published other maps as well. Towards the end of his life he was appointed Master of Mechanics to H.M. the King, which was a sinecure, given in recognition of his services. He died in 1798.
