- Musson , A.E. and Robinson , Eric . 1969 . Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution 102 – 102 . Manchester
- Gibbs , F.W. 1960 . Itinerant Lecturers in Natural Philosophy . Ambix , 6 : 111 – 117 .
- Henderson , E. 1867 . Life of James Ferguson, F.R.S., in a brief autobiographical account, and further extended memoir Edinburgh, Glasgow and London in his includes some references to Ferguson's visits to Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but much more information has since been discovered from provincial newspapers and unpublished correspondence. A list of the places that Ferguson is currently known or thought to have visited is given in the Appendix to this paper.
- Musson and Robinson . 1969 . Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution 104 – 105 . Manchester provide references to biographical sources on Adam Walker and specific examples of his lecture advertisements, but the evolution of his lecturing career before he settled in London has not yet been examined in detail.
- Some information on these points can be deduced from the wording of the relevant advertisements, but it should be borne in mind that not every course advertised actually took place. For example, when Ferguson first visited Norwich in 1752 his initial advertisement Norwich Mercury 1752 May 23 announcing his intention to give a course of astronomical lectures for five shillings did not attract sufficient support, and it was only after he had given a demonstration of his apparatus that he was able to start lecturing a fortnight later.
- 1983 . Princetown University Library Chronicle Vol. 44 , 156 – 157 . Winter I am indebted to Dr R. K. Smeltzer, of Princeton, New Jersey, for drawing this to my attention, and to the Curator of Manuscripts at Princeton University Library for supplying me with copies of the letters, which were found in a copy of Edmund Stone's The Construction and principal U ses of Mathematical Instruments: Translated from the French of M. Bion, 2nd edn (London, 1758) that had apparently belonged to James Beresford. The letters are catalogued as ‘James Ferguson, F.R.S.: 5 letters to James Beresford, 1771; AM 82–12 (MSS Misc)’. Extracts are published here with the permission of Princeton University Library.
- Millburn , John R. 1983 . The London Evening Courses of Benjamin Martin and James Ferguson, Eighteenth-Century Lecturers on Experimental Philosophy . Annals of Science , 40 : 437 – 455 .
- Ferguson , James . 1773 . Select Mechanical Exercises i – xliii . London ‘A Short Account of the Life of the Author’. This is mainly concerned with his early life in Scotland and the first few years in London; his career from 1748 onwards occupies only the last three paragraphs.
- Henderson . 1867 . Life of James Ferguson, F.R.S., in a brief autobiographical account, and further extended memoir Edinburgh, Glasgow and London quotes several alleged entries in Kent's London Directories between 1748 and 1761, of the form ‘James Ferguson, Astronomer, … -street’. These are all fictitious. The London directories of this period were for ‘merchants and principal traders’; an entry for an astronomer would have been totally out of place. The first London directory to include the ‘polite and liberal arts’ was Thomas Mortimer's (1763), in which Ferguson receives a mention as an ‘Astronomer and Private Teacher of Natural Philosophy’; his entry runs to about 3 col.-cm, and refers to his courses of lectures on mechanics, etc.
- 1746 . The Use of a new Orrery, made and described by James Ferguson London His paper on Venus was read to the Royal Society on 26 March 1746, and published in the Philosophical Transactions, 44 (1746), 127–50.
- 1983 . Bibliography of James Ferguson, FRS Aylesbury I entered this as ‘1745?’ and ‘Not located’, but I have since been informed that a copy bearing the publication date 12 January 1744 is at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.
- This advertisement runs to 39 lines. A cutting is in Lysons's Daniel Collectanea: or, a Collection of Advertisements and Paragraphs from the Newspapers British Library III f. 141r f. 141r shelfmark 1889.e.5) Lysons dated it ‘Nov: 27 1746’. Its source has not been found, but this date is compatible with what is known of Ferguson's movements.
- Following the invention of the Leyden Jar, electrical demonstrations were given by numerous practitioners in other fields as well as by the established lecturers on Experimental Philosophy. Advertisements have been noted by Benjamin Rackstrow (sculptor), John Bennett (mathematical instrument maker), John Neale (watchmaker), Richard Oliver (schoolteacher), Francis Watkins (optician), and Magnus Tyro (surgeon and physician). There were also several anonymous advertisers in this field. Hackmann W. Electricity from Glass, the History of the Frictional Electrical Machine, 1600–1850 Alphen aan den Rijn 1978 173 173 refers to a letter from Henry Baker, FRS, which describes experiments then being shown by ‘a Mr. King’; this was most probably Erasmus King of Duke's Court, whose courses on Experimental Philosophy included electricity.
- This was a reference to an anonymous tract An Answer to Mr. Ferguson's Essay upon the Moon's turning round its own Axis London 1748 attributed by Henderson (footnote 3, 126–7) to ‘Mr. Grove of Richmond’. The publication of this tract in May 1748 caused Ferguson to announce in the Daily Advertiser on 18 June that he had read it, and would explain his views to the author if the latter would call on him.
- For the events leading up to this, and comments on the first three editions, see Millburn John R. New Light on James Ferguson's Astronomy Explained The Bibliotheck, a Scottish Journal of Bibliography 1974 7 61 71
- This letter was printed in full by Henderson Life of James Ferguson, F.R.S., in a brief autobiographical account, and further extended memoir Edinburgh, Glasgow and London 1867 225 230 When Henderson compiled his book, the letter was at the Elgin Museum in Scotland; it is not currently known there, but its authenticity is not doubted.
- Henderson . 1867 . Life of James Ferguson, F.R.S., in a brief autobiographical account, and further extended memoir 231 – 231 . Edinburgh, Glasgow and London quoting The Morning Post and General Advertiser for 2 May 1758.
- Ferguson used his orrery as an analogue computer to show that there was only one year in a period of 20 years around the probable date of the Crucifixion when the Passover full moon fell on a Friday, and that was A.D. 33. He first announced this in his tract A Brief Description of the Solar System Norwich 1753 Dr C. J. Humphreys has recently derived the same date from other astronomical considerations: ‘Dating the Crucifixion’, Nature, 306 (22/29 December 1983), 743–6.
- Ferguson . 1773 . Select Mechanical Exercises xlii – xlii . London
- Ferguson , James . Lectures on Select Subjects in Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, and Optics. With the Use of the Globes, the Art of Dialing, and the Calculation of the Mean Times of New and Full Moons and Eclipses This was published in April 1760 by Andrew Millar in octavo, and reissued in 1764 in quarto. Although the text is divided into twelve ‘Lectures’ this was not ‘the book of the course’. To obtain full coverage of the subjects of his standard course of Experimental Philosophy, subscribers to Ferguson's lectures had to purchase his Astronomy as well; on the other hand, Lectures did include Optics, on which he seldom lectured.
- This episode provides the most blatant example of the inventiveness of Henderson's London correspondent(s). The transit was observed from the roof of the British Museum by eight people, one of whom was ‘Mr. Ferguson, Russell Street, Bloomsbury’. Henderson Life of James Ferguson, F.R.S., in a brief autobiographical account, and further extended memoir Edinburgh, Glasgow and London 1867 255 256 correctly quotes the document recording their observations of the times of contact (British Library, Add. MS 4440 f.617), but the document headed ‘Mr. James Ferguson's remarks on the foregoing observations’, which he printed in full on pp. 256–8, is fictitious. The text is a slightly-modified copy of Samuel Dunn's observations of the transit at Chelsea, as printed in the Philosophical Transactions, 52 (1761), 184–95, with the words ‘from the top of the Museum’ inserted to link it to the genuine document, though Dunn's times were left unaltered despite the discrepancy due to the difference in longitude. Henderson's informant did not even bother to delete a reference to Chelsea in the text, so confident was he that Henderson would not notice the obvious incompatibility with the reference to the Museum. To reinforce the assertion that ‘Mr. Ferguson, Russell Street’ was James Ferguson the lecturer, Henderson's informant provided two references purporting to show that Ferguson had an address there; both are fictitious.
- June 1761 . Daily Advertiser June , 5
- Daily Advertiser Vol. 8 , 15 – 15 . and 23 June 1761.
- Labaree , L.W. , ed. 1966 . The Papers of Benjamin Franklin Vol. IX , 369 – 369 . New Haven and London
- Letter to Thomas Balfour December 1761 4 National Library of Scotland MS 581 Item 569. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is assumed that Ferguson's visit to Birmingham was his first trip outside London since 1755, but it is possible that he made other expeditions in 1758–1760 which have not yet been discovered.
- Electricity took the place of the lecture on Dialing. A set of advertisements for Ferguson's lectures in the 1770s is given in the previous paper The London Evening Courses of Benjamin Martin and James Ferguson, Eighteenth-Century Lecturers on Experimental Philosophy Annals of Science 1983 40 437 455
- Letter to the Rev. Philip Morant, September 1755 11 British Library, Add. MS 37,222 f.110.
- A list of Ferguson's apparatus was first published at the end of his Tables and Tracts, relative to several Arts and Sciences London 1767 318 327 Slightly different lists occur in later publications; for example, electrical equipment first appears in The Young Gentleman and Lady's Astronomy (London, 1768).
- 1771 . Gentleman's Magazine , 41 January : 28 – 28 . This was a table of data for pump-makers, which Ferguson said he had promised to send to the editor ‘some time ago’; but his memory must have been slipping, for he had sent an identical table to the magazine about three years earlier, which was published in the Supplement for 1767, vol. 37, pp. 633–4.
- National Library of Scotland Ac.4741. The addressee is not named, but was almost certainly Miss Don, daughter of Sir Alexander and Lady Don, of Newton, Berwickshire. After returning from his Edinburgh trip in 1768, Ferguson sent Miss Don a complimentary copy of his Young Gentleman and Lady's Astronomy which, with his covering note, is now in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.
- Ferguson first stipulated minimum numbers of subscribers for his lectures outside the London area in his Tables and Tracts 1767 where he stated that up to a hundred miles from London he required a minimum of sixty subscribers. However, the figures more usually quoted in his newspaper advertisements at any one place were from thirty to forty. Normally he tried to make an extended tour worth while by lecturing at several places in the same area, such as Bristol and Bath, or Liverpool and Manchester; or by stopping to give lectures en route, such as at Northampton and Derby on the way to or from Manchester.
- Goodison , Nicholas . 1974 . Ormulu: the Work of Matthew Boulton London The story of the design and manufacture of the surviving globe-clock, based on Boulton's correspondence preserved in the Assay Office, Birmingham, is described in Goodison's ‘Matthew Boulton's Geographical Clock, an important rediscovery’, The Connoisseur, 166 (1967), 213–21.
- Ferguson . then aged nearly 61, was three years older than Whitehurst and nineteen years older than Boulton.
- Henderson . 1867 . Life of James Ferguson, F.R.S., in a brief autobiographical account, and further extended memoir 268 – 269 . Edinburgh, Glasgow and London quotes a manuscript account of the Great Silk Mill at Derby, signed ‘J. Ferguson, 1762’, which in 1831 was in the possession of D. F. Walker, the astronomical lecturer. While it is true that Ferguson passed through Derby in 1762 on a visit to Liverpool and Manchester, no evidence has been found to suggest that he lectured there on that occasion, as Henderson assumed. According to advertisements in the Derby Mercury, J. Arden was lecturing there in April and May 1762.
- April 1764 . Derby Mercury April , 13 (announcing Ferguson's intention to lecture there later than year), and 6 July 1764 (indicating that he would begin lecturing at the County Hall on 9 July). Advance subscriptions for the lectures were taken in by John Whitehurst.
- Schofield , R.E. 1963 . The Lunar Society of Birmingham 113 – 113 . Oxford
- Royal Society . Miscellaneous Letters and Papers, 1741–1806 Vol. 48 , 265 – 265 . item
- Ferguson . 1773 . Select Mechanical Exercises 1 – 11 . London and plates I, II. Henderson (footnote 3, 231) attributed. Ferguson's modification to the year 1758, but there is no real evidence for this date. In his earlier Historical Treatise on Horology (London, 1836), p. 20, Henderson dated Franklin's design ‘about the year 1765.’ Dr A.D.C. Simpson, of the Royal Scottish Museum, informs me that the Museum recently acquired a Ferguson-type clock probably made in the 1770s (Inv. Ty.1982.58); for details see Brian Loomes, ‘Ferguson's Unique Three-Wheeler,’ Clocks (March, 1982), 11–12.
- James Ferguson's Common Place-Book , Edinburgh University Library . Dk.7.33. Henderson (footnote 3) gave a list of the contents in his second edition, 1870, pp. [xvii]–xxii. Franklin's clock is drawn and described on p. 96 of the book, and Ferguson's modified version on p. 98. These drawings, the ones in the letter to Beresford, and the printed plates in Select Mechanical Exercises, show similar features but are not exact copies. As the drawings in the Commonplace Book are not dated, there is nothing to indicate whether they are earlier or later than those in the letter.
- 1771 . October 4
- 1903 . Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, 1771 to 1780 46 – 46 . Didsbury, Manchester I am indebted to Dr H. S. Torrens, of Keele University, for drawing my attention to this.
- Ferguson . 1867 . Life of James Ferguson, F.R.S., in a brief autobiographical account, and further extended memoir 93 – 93 . Edinburgh, Glasgow and London
- National Maritime Museum , Greenwich : Astronomy Dept. . G43. This drawing was at some time catalogued as being dated 1746, but the date in the top right-hand corner is now illegible. Comparison of the three documents shows that this one, and the letter to Beresford (22 October 1771), conclude with two similar though not identical paragraphs about some proposed additional wheelwork, which are not in the Commonplace Book entry. The text of the National Maritime Museum document uses initial capitals for nouns much more sparingly than the equivalent passages in the letter and the Commonplace Book. This suggests a later rather than earlier date, though Ferguson was not always consistent on this point.
- I am indebted to Mrs Ruth Wallis of Newcastle-upon-Tyne for this reference. As well as ‘Mr. Beresford, Mathematician, of Bewdley’, the subscribers included a Rev. Mr. Beresford of London, and the lecturer J. Arden of Beverley. In 1794 a ‘Mr. Berisford, Bewdley’, was a subscriber to George Adam's Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy
- Ferguson , James , ed. Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the most interesting Parts of Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, Electricity, and Astronomy F.R.S. Newcastle: Printed by J. Smith: in the Year M.DCC.LXXI. A copy is at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.
- Plant , Robert . 1881 . History of Cheadle in Staffordshire, and neighbouring Places Leek I am indebted to Dr. H. S. Torrens for drawing my attention to this. According to Plant, the Manor of Cheadle was in the possession of the family of Sir Joseph Banks from 1719 to 1791, so perhaps Ferguson met his Cheadle friends through contacts at the Royal Society.
- Curiously Henderson Life of James Ferguson, F.R.S., in a brief autobiographical account, and further extended memoir Edinburgh, Glasgow and London 1867 216 216 reported an accident to Ferguson's leg, but his account, entered under the year 1757, is entirely spurious. The letter to Thomas Birch, allegedly dated 20 February 1757, which he quotes supposedly in full, purports to relate that Ferguson had so bruised his leg that he could not go out for a few days. This letter does exist (British Library, Add. MS 4307 f.145), but it has absolutely nothing to do with Ferguson. It was written on 21 January 1748 by H. Foulkes, Birch's curate, to explain why he could not take the services on the following Sunday. Evidently Henderson's London correspondent came across this when looking through the Birch letters at the British Museum, thought it would add some ‘colour’ to his reports, and proceeded to send Henderson a transcript, carefully omitting three words ‘at your church’ which would have given the game away, and adding an entirely fictitious data and signature.
- Goodison . 1974 . Ormulu: the Work of Matthew Boulton London The Connoisseur
- Ferguson's two basic designs for tidal clocks are described and illustrated in Millburn John R. James Ferguson's Tidal Clocks, 1764–1770 Antiquarian Horology 1977 10 331 335
- Labaree , L.W. , ed. 1974 . The Papers of Benjamin Franklin Vol. XVIII , 194 – 194 . New Haven and London
- A pair of terrestrial and celestial globes of this size by Hill is at the National Maritime Museum Greenwich ref. G.91,92.
- December 1771 . Daily Advertiser December , 21 and 28
- Millburn . 1983 . The London Evening Courses of Benjamin Martin and James Ferguson, Eighteenth-Century Lecturers on Experimental Philosophy . Annals of Science , 40 : 437 – 455 . Except for lengthy tours to the North Midlands in 1772, and the Bath/Bristol region in 1774, Ferguson spent most of the rest of his life (he died in November 1776) lecturing in London or the vicinity. The last of his surviving letters to Beresford was written at Bath in March, 1774. This and a previous one written at London in February contain detailed drawings and descriptions of Cox's ‘Perpetual Motion’ clock, then on show in London, for which Ferguson wrote a testimonial dated 28 January 1774.
Annals of Science
Volume 42, 1985 - Issue 4