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11. Augustus De Morgan: The Archival Record

Chapter of: Augustus De Morgan, Polymath: New Perspectives on his Life and Legacy(pp. 278–304)

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Metadata
Title11. Augustus De Morgan
SubtitleThe Archival Record
ContributorKaren Attar(author)
Alexander Lock (author)
Katy Makin (author)
Jane Maxwell (author)
Virginia Mills(author)
Diana Smith(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0408.11
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0408/chapters/10.11647/obp.0408.11
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightKaren Attar, Alexander Lock, Katy Makin, Jane Maxwell, Virginia Mills and Diana Smith
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2024-09-04
Long abstractCorrespondence and mathematical papers generated by De Morgan can be found in numerous libraries throughout the British Isles and, to a lesser extent, in the United States. The collections are of different sizes and levels of importance, including family letters among others at Senate House Library, University of London, correspondence with publishers (letters to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge at University College London) and communications with scientific organisations (the Royal Astronomical Society, kept at the RAS). Above all there are his letters to numerous scientists and mathematicians, such as Sir William Rowan Hamilton (Trinity College Dublin), Charles Babbage (British Library), William Whewell (Trinity College, Cambridge), Sir George Airy (Cambridge University Library), and Sir John Herschel (Royal Society). Some letters to De Morgan also survive through having been pasted into his books, now at Senate House Library. This chapter summarises the emphasis and salient features of each of the multiple archival collections to provide an overview, of a sort never attempted before.
Page rangepp. 278–304
Print length27 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Karen Attar

(author)
Curator of Rare Books and University Art at Senate House Library at University of London
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0898-808X

Karen Attar is the Curator of Rare Books and University Art at Senate House Library, University of London, and was for many years a Research Fellow at the University’s Institute of English Studies. Her publications cover various aspects of book collecting, library history and librarianship. They include several book chapters on Augustus De Morgan’s library, which she also reconstituted within the University of London and catalogued. She is best known for the Directory of Rare Book and Special Collections in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (3rd edn, 2016).

Alexander Lock

(author)
Curator of Modern Archives and Manuscripts at British Library

Alexander Lock is Curator of Modern Archives and Manuscripts at the British Library, where he is responsible for collections dated 1600–1950. He is a specialist in early modern British history and co-curated the Library’s best-selling exhibitions ‘Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy’ (2015) and ‘Harry Potter: A History of Magic’ (2017).

Katy Makin

(author)

Katy Makin is an archivist at UCL Special Collections, where she has worked since 2011. She manages collections of donated and deposited archives covering all genres and dating from the medieval period to the present day.

Jane Maxwell

(author)
Senior Manuscrips Curator at Trinity College Dublin

Jane Maxwell has for several decades been a senior manuscripts curator in the Library of Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin.

Virginia Mills

(author)
Archivist at Royal Society
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7374-3516

Virginia Mills is the early collections archivist at the Royal Society, where she is responsible for curating pre-1900 material and the records of the past Fellowship. She has previously worked in scientific archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Natural History Museum, London.

Diana Smith

(author)
Assistant Archivist at Trinity College Library at University of Cambridge
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9031-3876

Diana Smith is Assistant Archivist at Trinity College Library, Cambridge. She most recently contributed a chapter about the Whewell papers at Trinity College Library to William Whewell: Victorian Polymath, edited by Lukas Verburgt as part of the University of Pittsburgh Press series Science, Culture, and the Nineteenth Century (autumn 2024).

References
  1. De Morgan, Sophia Elizabeth, Memoir of Augustus De Morgan (London: Longmans, Green, 1882).
  2. ―, Threescore Years and Ten: Reminiscences of the Late Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan, to which are Added Letters to and from her Husband, the Late Augustus De Morgan, and Others, ed. by Mary A. De Morgan (London: Bentley, 1895).
  3. Graves, Robert Perceval, Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton: Knt., LL. D., D.C.L., M.R.I.A., Andrews Professor of Astronomy in the University of Dublin, and Royal Astronomer of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, 1882–89).
  4. Harris, P.R., A History of the British Museum Library, 1753–1973 (London: British Library, 1998).
  5. Higgitt, Rebekah, Recreating Newton: Newtonian Biography and the Making of Nineteenth-Century History of Science (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2007). https://doi.org/10.4324/ 9781315653068
  6. ―, ‘Why I don’t FRS my Tail: Augustus De Morgan and the Royal Society’, Notes and Records, 60 (2006), 253–59. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2006.0150
  7. Merrington, Maxine, A List of Certain Letters Inserted in Books from the Library of Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) now in the University of London Library ([London]: University of London Library, 1990).
  8. Miller, Edward, Prince of Librarians: The Life and Times of Antonio Panizzi of the British Museum (London: British Library, 1988).
  9. Pycior, Helena M., ‘Early Criticism of the Symbolical Approach to Algebra’, Historia Mathematica, 9 (1982), 392–412.
  10. Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Enquire into the Constitution and Government of the British Museum (London: William Clowes, 1850).
  11. Rice, Adrian, ‘Inspiration or Desperation? Augustus De Morgan’s Appointment to the Chair of Mathematics at London University in 1828’, British Journal for the History of Science, 30 (1997), 257–74. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007087497003075
  12. ―, ‘Vindicating Leibniz in the Calculus Priority Dispute: The Role of Augustus De Morgan’, in The History of the History of Mathematics, ed. by Benjamin Wardhaugh (New York: Lang, 2012), pp. 89–114. https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0353-0261-5/7
  13. Richards, Joan, ‘Augustus De Morgan, Formal Logic: or, The Calculus of Inference, Necessary and Probable’, in Senate House Library, University of London, ed. by Christopher Pressler and Karen Attar (London: Scala, 2012).
  14. Rye, Reginald Arthur, Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Autograph Letters in the University Library at the Central Building of the University of London … (London: University of London Press, 1921).
  15. Simmons, Charlotte, ‘Augustus De Morgan Behind the Scenes’, College Mathematics Journal, 42 (2011), 33–40. https://doi.org/10.4169/college.math.j.42.1.033
  16. Smith, G.C., ed., The Boole-De Morgan Correspondence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).
  17. Smith, James, The Quadrature of the Circle: Correspondence between an Eminent Mathematician and James Smith (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1861).
  18. Spevack, Marvin, James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps: The Life and Works of the Shakespearean Scholar and Bookman (London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 2001).
  19. Stephen, Leslie, and I. Grattan-Guinness, ‘De Morgan, Augustus (1806–1871)’, in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004–). https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/7470
  20. Theerman, Paul, ‘Unaccustomed Role: The Scientist as Historical Biographer: Two Nineteenth-Century Portrayals of Newton’, Biography, 8 (1985), 145–62. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2010.0582
  21. Todhunter, Isaac, William Whewell: An Account of his Writings, with Selections from his Literary and Scientific Correspondence (London: Macmillan, 1876; repr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139105415
  22. Venn, John and J.A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge from the Earliest Times to 1900, 10 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922–1954; repr. 2011); also available online as University of Cambridge, ACAD: A Cambridge Alumni Database, https://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk
  23. Weerden, Anne van, A Victorian Marriage: Sir William Rowan Hamilton (Stedum: J. Fransje van Weerden, 2017).