The Stories from the Stones 22 - By Steve Lavender

'Stories from the Stones'
Please visit the Contents Page for this section where you will find other 'Stories from the Stones.'

These same stories are also published on Penistone Archive Group's Facebook page, their Journal and in 'The Bridge' magazine issued by St John's church, Penistone. Many thanks to their tireless author, Mr Steve Lavender, for his worthy contributions to local history and this website. - JB.

(Nicholas Saunderson is also recorded as ‘Nicolas’ and ‘Sanderson’ in various texts)

Perhaps the most famous person from our locality who is not buried in the churchyard is the mathematician, Nicholas Saunderson. Born in Thurlstone to John and Ann Saunderson on 20th January 1682, the story of Nicholas Saunderson is nothing short of remarkable.

John Saunderson was an excise man for the area and the family had a long association with this part of Yorkshire. When Nicholas was just one year old he contracted smallpox, the result of which was that he lost his sight at such a young age. There is a local legend that he taught himself to read by running his fingers across the engravings of the gravestones in St John’s Churchyard Penistone. Whilst it is impossible to back this claim up, one fact that we can verify is that there were indeed gravestones in the burial ground long before young Nicholas made it his place for learning.

He attended Penistone Grammar School and under the tutoring of Mr Staniforth he became proficient in Latin and Greek and, in due course with the assistance of his father, of Mathematics. He also mastered French, had a good ear for music and was a competent performer with the flute. Being a blind boy at this time in our history would have been very tough. However, we have discovered that he was helped considerably by his father and a wide circle of friends who would read to him and be the source of providing a wide range of books from which the young Nicholas was able to be instructed. If you add in Nicholas’s capability for learning then it is possible to see how he was able to rise to such an unexpected acclaim.

From Penistone at the age of around 18 he spent a short time at the Attercliffe Academy, near Sheffield, where he focused his studies on metaphysics and logic. Nicholas was not happy here, disapproving of their methods, and so returned to Thurlstone. He now was fortunate to meet up with Richard West of Underbank Hall and continued his studies in Mathematics, Algebra and Geometry.

It was around 1707 that events started to make an interesting turn for the Saunderson family. Following the continued support of his father, and his circle of friends, they made the proposal that he should go to Cambridge University. Unfortunately, his family could not afford to send him there as a student but a friend (through the Attercliffe Academy), Joshua Dunn, who was a fellow-commoner of Christ’s College Cambridge, brought Nicholas to the college and allowed him to share his rooms. Rather than attend Christ’s as a student (due to his lack of funds) Nicholas was able to secure a post as a teacher.

Nicholas began to teach Optics, Geometry, Mechanics, Sound and Algebra. This was the time of Sir Isaac Newton whose important mathematical works (inc. Principia Mathematica) were being introduced at Cambridge. Nicholas would be teaching Newton’s Mathematics to university students. He was well liked, and his lectures were well attended and so it came to pass that Nicholas was proposed for the highly respected role of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the university. Unfortunately, this position was set to elude him as it was only eligible to holders of a university degree, which as we know was beyond Nicholas’s financial position. This however is where his wonderful circle of friends once again rallied around. Eventually the Heads of Colleges made an appeal to the Crown and on 19th November 1711, Queen Anne awarded Nicholas a Master of Arts degree and in due course Nicholas did become the fourth recipient of the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics, Christ’s College, University of Cambridge. On 6th November 1718, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).

There is much to write on Nicholas’s life and contribution to Mathematics but for now just let’s take a look at his family life. He married Abigail Dickons, the daughter of a local curate from Boxworth on 8th September 1723. Nicholas and Abigail had two children, John and Anne. He had a sister Ann who married James Walton back in Penistone. Indeed, there are many of this side of the family also buried at St. John’s Penistone.

This article has been about the story linking graves in our churchyard to a most remarkable man. I would love to go into detail about the specifics of Nicholas’s mathematical works but there are two problems, one - I would need another ten pages to do justice to his work and two – I don’t understand much of what he has achieved. I would need a competent mathematician break down what Nicholas achieved into simple, easy to understand language, but so far that has eluded me. However, that must not detract from the achievements of a child who was blinded by disease at the age of one, becoming a well loved teacher at Cambridge University, defending, explaining and expanding the work of Sir Isaac Newton over 300 years ago.

Nicholas passed away on 19th April 1739 and is buried at St Peter’s Church, Boxworth where there is a monument to him. In 1740 a two-volume book of his ten papers, 'Elements of Algebra' was published posthumously by his family and friends, and a copy is in my possession. At the Grammar School in Penistone there was a House named for Saunderson (this has now gone). At St John’s Church there is a Memorial Gate on Shrewsbury Road, a Monument and a garden in his name. Back in Thurlstone a small plaque, which used to be by his family home ('Nicolas Saunderson Hic Natus Est') has been moved to a small seated garden where the wall memorial is located, since the family house was demolished in the 1950s.

Near to Penistone’s Stottercliffe cemetery is a Saunderson Road. In 2006 Nicholas’s life was portrayed in a musical, 'No Horizon', written by local Primary School Head, Andy Platt. It was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016.

An inspiring story of a local man who achieved great acclaim despite being struck down by blindness at an early age. With the support of family and friends he was able to overcome the challenges of his blindness. We will remember Nicholas Saunderson and the exceptional life he lived.

My thanks to:
St John’s Penistone Burial Ground Project,
Penistone Archive Group,
Ancestry.com.

Steve Lavender
Former Chair, Friends of St John’s Church 2023,
Burial Ground Project, Stories of the Stones Sept 2024.

Notes:

• Many thanks to Steve Lavender for providing this story and the other ones to Penistone Pictorial.
• The line engraving of Nicholas Saunderson (1682-1739) was made around 1719 by John Vanderbank (1694-1739).
• The engraving is displayed under the Creative Commons licence (non-commercial use) from such as the National Portrait Gallery and other sources:
  
• The text box is a section of page 236 from Edward Baines' 'Directory and Gazeteer of the County of York, Vol I, 1822' (See Archive.org).
• The play No Horizon is based upon Nicholas Saunderson's life and has been performed several times including in Thurlstone.
• Local historian, the late David Hey, says that gravestones in Penistone and most other churchyards date no earlier than the late 17th century, throwing a small doubt on the story that Nicholas Saunderson had learnt lettering from the gravestones of Penistone churchyard. However, churchyard gravestones would have made their appearance during his lifetime and he would have visited aome great cathedrals. He also might have visited monuments from earlier times.