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- 10 Feb. 1827 (Creation)
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1 folded sheet
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George Peacock was born 9 April 1791 in Denton, near Darlington, co. Durham, one of eight children, the youngest of five sons of Thomas Peacock, curate and schoolmaster at Denton. After a short spell at Richmond School he came up to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1809, where he graduated as Second Wrangler. He was elected Fellow of Trinity in 1814, and received his MA in 1816.
In 1815 Peacock was appointed a Mathematics lecturer at Trinity, and became a tutor in 1823. His leanings towards reform were exercised in his review of the Mathematics Tripos during his three spells as moderator, from 1816 to 1821, as well as work on committees to rebuild the University Library and build the Fitzwilliam Museum, amongst other projects. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1818, and was given the Lowndean professorship of astronomy and geometry in 1837, a position he held until his death. He lectured for many years on mathematical theory in this role, and was on the committee in 1843 to restore the standards of weights and measures which had been destroyed in the parliament building fire.
Peacock was appointed Dean of Ely in 1839 and turned over the astronomy lectures to the Plumian professor of astronomy and experimental philosophy, retaining the Lowndean chair as a sinecure for the rest of his life. In Ely he persuaded the chapter to restore the cathedral, improved education for the middle and lower classes, and improved the city's drainage system. In 1841 Peacock published 'Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge', advocating academic and political reform of the university and colleges, and served on the royal commission for inquiry at Cambridge in 1850, and and to a royal statutory commission for Cambridge in 1855.He was able to initiate many reforms, despite the opposition of Trinity master William Whewell.
He married Frances Elizabeth, daughter of William Selwyn, in 1847, and died at Ely in November 1858.
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Purchased from C.A. Kyrle Fletcher, 1979.
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8 Craven Hill, Bayswater.—Thanks him for the interest he has shown in his son John, whom he has instructed to behave better. He has decided to restrict his allowance to £200 a year, and to remove him from Trinity if he exceeds it.
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Transcript
8 Craven Hill, Bayswater
Feby 10th 1827.
My dear Sir,
I was in hopes that the present week would have afforded me sufficient leisure to pay you a short visit at Cambridge, that I might personally express to you the very lively gratitude which I feel for the great interest you have shewn in my son’s {1} welfare; but I am disappointed, and must therefore entreat your acceptance of my written acknowledgment of it, untill an opportunity shall offer of fulfilling my intention which, believe me, I shall eagerly embrace. I have, in consequence of your last letter, said every thing my mind could suggest to convince John of his error and to induce him to adopt a line of conduct more conducive to his own reputation and the satisfaction of his parents and of yourself, my dear Sir; and if it were not exacting too much of you, it would be doing both my son and me a most essential service, if you would inform him that I, having made diligent enquiries upon the subject, and having that the sons of many distinguished and noble families have passed through the University with honor to themselves upon two hundred pounds a year, I have determined, henceforward, to limit his allowance to that sum; and that if he exceeds it, I shall feel it my duty to erase his name from the books of Trinity, and leave him to battle his way through the world with others who, like himself, may have been foolish and wicked enough to squander the talents and advantages with which it has pleased God to bless them—pray excuse me for the task which I now request you to perform it; it cannot, I am certain, be an agreeable {1} one, but from the uncommon interest which you have expressed towards my son I feel a conviction that you will confer this additional obligation upon him who must always consider himself already
My dear Sir, | Your most obliged & obedient Servant
C. Kemble.
[Direction:] George Peacock Esqre | &c &c &c | Trinity College | Cambridge
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Postmarked 12 February 1827.
{1} The writer’s son, John Mitchell Kemble, later a distinguished Anglo-Saxon scholar, was admitted at Trinity on 26 June 1824 and assigned Robert Wilson Evans as his tutor, but it is clear that Evans shared responsibility for him with Peacock, his partner in one of the two tutorial sides between 1823 to 1835 (see Admissions to Trinity College, Cambridge, vol. iv, 1801 to 1850, p. v).
{2} The second ‘e’ is blotted, perhaps deliberately.