Mathematical Publican: "Good in everything".

The Mathematical Society, which for about forty years past has held its weekly meetings at the Society's rooms in Crispin-street, Spitalfields, London, and has enrolled among; its members many eminent men, owes its origin to Mr Joseph Middleton. In the early part of his life he had been by profession a mariner. Subsequently he relinquished the sea- page 62 and kept a publichouse called the Monmouth Head, in Mon-mouth-street, Spitalfields, which is now the site of Hanbury's brewery.

Middleton still retained a strong attachment to the pursuits-of his youth, and to the mathematical sciences on which navigation is founded; and was also actuated in a high degree by a desire to communicate knowledge to people in general. For this purpose, in 1717, he formed a society of his neighbors, consisting chiefly of silk weavers, who assembled at a room in his house in Monmouth-street on Saturday evenings, whom he taught gratuitously the various branches of the mathematics. The whole expense to the members was four-pence a night each, which was laid out in refreshments. Absentees were fined one penny a night: this little fund was expended in the purchase of books.

Mr Icum,. late schoolmaster at Watford, was accustomed, whenever he came to London, to attend at the meetings of the society; now [1828] arrived at maturity, and, as another Nestor, to relate to the comparatively young members the recollection of his youth when first taken to the society by his father; and he gloried that he had been in the habit of frequenting it for upwards of seventy years.

Middleton's intimate acquaintance with all the branches of mathematical and astronomical science on which navigation is founded, appears from a large manuscript in folio, which is still preserved in the library of the Mathematical Society, and which, amongst other things, contains various maps and charts.

One of the rules of the institution, which had so humble an origin, observed for upwards of eighty years, was that one hour during the time of meeting should be devoted to silent study, and no one was allowed, under the penalty of a fine, to open his lips until the sand in the hourglass had run down.

The leading principles of the institution, as laid down by Middleton, were—economy, social intercourse, and mutual communication of knowledge. These, under modifications adapted to the times and the more opulent circumstances of the members, have been uniformly acted upon; and to these the society owed much of its prosperity.

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Agreeably to the original custom many of the members usually remain after the formal weekly sitting, and spend the Evening together in conversation on subjects connected with

On the back of the title page of the catalogue of books and apparatus is the following sentence "By the constitution of this society it is the duty of every member, if he be asked my mathematical or philosophical question by another member, to instruct him in the plainest and easiest manner he is

I Such have been the results of the exertions of an obscure individual, and his memory ought to be preserved as an encouragement and useful "stimulus to similar meritorious efforts.

(James Mitchell, 1828)