James Inman
Encyclopedia
James Inman was an English
mathematician
, professor of mathematics at the Royal Naval College
, Portsmouth
.
He was born at Tod Hole in Garsdale
, the younger son of Richard Inman and Jane Hutchinson. He was educated at Sedbergh Grammar School
and St John's College, Cambridge
, graduating as first Smith's prizeman and Senior Wrangler for 1800. Among his close college friends was Henry Martyn
.
After graduating with first class honours in 1800, Inman intended to undertake missionary work in the Middle East
, in Syria
, but due to a declaration of war could travel no further than Malta
, where he continued to study Arabic.
Returning to England
, the Board of Longitude
appointed him as Astronomer on HMS Investigator under Captain Matthew Flinders
charting Australia
n waters in 1803-4. At this time he became a firm friend of Flinders' nephew, John Franklin
, then midshipman. He also befriended the Investigator's artist, William Westall
, for whom he later wrote letters of introduction. While on board the Warley (East Indiaman)
for his return to Britain, he participated in the Battle of Pulo Auro. Here he temporarily commanded a party of Lascar pikemen
.
He was ordained 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 tables, known as Inman's Nautical Tables, remained in use for many years. In the third edition (1835) he introduced a new table of haversines (the term was his coinage) to simplify the calculation of distances between two points on the surface of the earth using spherical trigonometry. (for details of the calculation, see Haversine formula
)
At his suggestion, in 1810 the Admiralty
established a School of Naval Architecture; 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
.
He retired in 1839, but continued living in Portsmouth until his death twenty years later, on 7 February 1859, aged 83.
His wife Mary, daughter of Richard Williams, vicar of All Saints' Church, Oakham
, Rutland
, was a direct descendant of Hannah Ayscough
, the mother of Sir Isaac Newton. 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
. Their youngest son Henry Inman (Police Commander)
, was founder and first commander of the South Australia Police.
In Franklin'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
, Canada
, after Inman. Cape Inman, a headland at Tierra Del Fuego, was named after Inman during the voyages of HMS Adventure
and HMS Beagle
.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, professor of mathematics at the Royal Naval College
Royal Naval Academy
The Royal Naval Academy was established at Portsmouth Dockyard as a facility to train officers for the Royal Navy. The founders' intentions were to provide an alternative means to recruit officers and to provide standardised training, education and admission.-Training:In 1773, a shore side...
, Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
.
He was born at Tod Hole in Garsdale
Garsdale
Garsdale is a civil parish occupying a narrow populated valley in Cumbria, England. It is on the western slopes of the Pennines, between Baugh Fell to the north, and Rise Hill to the south. The main hamlet, called “The Street”, lies on the A684 road, east of Sedbergh, and west of Hawes...
, the younger son of Richard Inman and Jane Hutchinson. He was educated at Sedbergh Grammar School
Sedbergh School
Sedbergh School is a boarding school in Sedbergh, Cumbria, for boys and girls aged 13 to 18. Nestled in the Howgill Fells, it is known for sporting sides, such as its Rugby Union 1st XV.-Background:...
and St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....
, graduating as first Smith's prizeman and Senior Wrangler for 1800. Among his close college friends was Henry Martyn
Henry Martyn
Henry Martyn 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 encounter with Charles Simeon led him to become a missionary...
.
After graduating with first class honours in 1800, Inman intended to undertake missionary work in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, but due to a declaration of war could travel no further than Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, where he continued to study Arabic.
Returning to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the Board of Longitude
Board of Longitude
The Board of Longitude was the popular name for the Commissioners for the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea. It was a British Government body formed in 1714 to administer a scheme of prizes intended to encourage innovators to solve the problem of finding longitude at sea.-Origins:Navigators and...
appointed him as Astronomer on HMS Investigator under Captain Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...
charting Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n waters in 1803-4. At this time he became a firm friend of Flinders' nephew, John Franklin
John Franklin
Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin KCH FRGS RN was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic...
, then midshipman. He also befriended the Investigator's artist, William Westall
William Westall
William Bury Westall was an English novelist born in Old Accrington, Lancashire, England.Originally a businessman, he later became a journalist who also wrote about 30 pot-boiler romantic novels with titles including The Old Factory, Strange Crimes and Her Ladyship's Secret...
, for whom he later wrote letters of introduction. While on board the Warley (East Indiaman)
Warley (East Indiaman)
The Warley was a 1475-ton East Indiaman and one of the East India Company's larger and more famous vessels. She made nine voyages to the East between 1796 and 1816, most direct to China. In 1804 she participated in the Battle of Pulo Aura...
for his return to Britain, he participated in the Battle of Pulo Auro. Here he temporarily commanded a party of Lascar pikemen
Pike (weapon)
A pike is a pole weapon, a very long thrusting spear used extensively by infantry both for attacks on enemy foot soldiers and as a counter-measure against cavalry assaults. Unlike many similar weapons, the pike is not intended to be thrown. Pikes were used regularly in European warfare from the...
.
He was ordained in 1805 when he gained his MA. Three years later he received an appointment as Professor of Nautical Mathematics at the Royal Naval College
Royal Naval Academy
The Royal Naval Academy was established at Portsmouth Dockyard as a facility to train officers for the Royal Navy. The founders' intentions were to provide an alternative means to recruit officers and to provide standardised training, education and admission.-Training:In 1773, a shore side...
. In 1821 he published Navigation and Nautical Astronomy for Seamen; these nautical tables, known as Inman's Nautical Tables, remained in use for many years. In the third edition (1835) he introduced a new table of haversines (the term was his coinage) to simplify the calculation of distances between two points on the surface of the earth using spherical trigonometry. (for details of the calculation, see Haversine formula
Haversine formula
The haversine formula is an equation important in navigation, giving great-circle distances between two points on a sphere from their longitudes and latitudes...
)
At his suggestion, in 1810 the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
established a School of Naval Architecture; the Admiralty also appointed Inman its first Principal. In 1812 he conducted experiments with Flinders which led to the invention of the Flinders Bar
Flinders bar
A Flinders bar is a vertical soft iron bar placed in a tube on the fore side of a compass binnacle. The Flinders bar is used to counteract the vertical magnetism inherent within a ship and is usually calibrated as part of the process known as swinging the compass, where deviations caused by this...
, 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
Royal Astronomical Society
The Royal Astronomical Society is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research . It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV...
.
He retired in 1839, but continued living in Portsmouth until his death twenty years later, on 7 February 1859, aged 83.
His wife Mary, daughter of Richard Williams, vicar of All Saints' Church, Oakham
All Saints' Church, Oakham
All Saints' Church, Oakham is a parish church in the Church of England in Oakham, Rutland.-History:The spire of Oakham parish church dominates distant views of the town for several miles in all directions...
, Rutland
Rutland
Rutland is a landlocked county in central England, bounded on the west and north by Leicestershire, northeast by Lincolnshire and southeast by Peterborough and Northamptonshire....
, was a direct descendant of Hannah Ayscough
Hannah Ayscough
Hannah Ayscough was the mother of Sir Isaac Newton.-Early life:Hannah was born in Market Overton in Rutland in 1623. Her parents were James Ayscough and his wife Margery Blythe.-Motherhood:...
, the mother of Sir Isaac Newton. 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, Grantham
The King's School is a British grammar school located in the market town of Grantham, in Lincolnshire, England, and one of the oldest schools in the UK.-History:...
. Their youngest son Henry Inman (Police Commander)
Henry Inman (police commander)
Henry Inman , cavalry officer, Pioneer of South Australia, founder and first commander of the South Australia Police, overlander, Anglican clergyman.-Origins:...
, was founder and first commander of the South Australia Police.
In Franklin'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
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, an arm of the Arctic Ocean...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, after Inman. Cape Inman, a headland at Tierra Del Fuego, was named after Inman during the voyages of HMS Adventure
HMS Adventure
Twelve ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Adventure. A thirteenth was planned but never completed: was a 26-gun galley launched in 1594 and broken up 1645. was a 32-gun ship launched in 1646, rebuilt in 1691 and captured by the French in 1709. was a 40-gun fifth rate launched in 1709 and...
and HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of £7,803. In July of that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom in which...
.
Works
- '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 1835-6)
- 'An Introduction to Naval Gunnery' 1826
- 'Plane and Spherical Trigonometry' 1826
- 'Formulæ and Rules for making Calculations on Plans of Ships' London, 8vo, 1849