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Between 1809 and 1820, Thomas Knight (1775–1853) published quite a few papers on mathematics and its applications. These show him to have been surprisingly well-versed in French analytical mathematics at a time when French works were little read by his British contemporaries. InBSHM Bulletin2, Gloria Edwards and I published a paper (Craik and Edwards 2004) entitled ‘In search of Thomas Knight’, designated below as ‘[1]’, that examined Knight’s life and work. This follow-up paper gives further biographical information that links him with Edinburgh; it describes some more of his publications that were previously overlooked (for notice of the latter, I am grateful to a correspondent who wishes to remain anonymous); and it records some remarks about his work by his contemporaries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The popular iconic image of Florence Nightingale as the ‘Lady with the Lamp’, who administered acute nursing care to the casualties during the Crimean War, belies a more integrated approach to Nightingale's nursing, which was shaped by her use of evidence-based medicine, promulgated in her statistical reports, books and papers. This image thus undermines Nightingale's prodigious statistical work and her innovative statistical graphs that led to major health reforms in military and civilian hospitals, usually with the full support of the government. It was this empirically based strategy that enabled her to establish the necessary and essential nursing and hospital reforms, which modernized nursing in the mid- to late-Victorian period. This paper will examine the mathematical and statistical graphs that arose in the nineteenth century, which influenced Nightingale's use of statistical graphs. The iconography of her polar area graph, which was based on the mortality rates of British soldiers during the Crimean War, will also be assessed. It will be shown that Nightingale's role in promoting this graph helped to establish its iconic status, as did her introduction of new elements into the ordinary polar area graph. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In print and manuscript, readers in early modern Britain engaged with mathematics within the broader context of a popular literary culture. Arithmetic and numeracy were read and written within an emergent vernacular English literature, whether as literary genres or as annotations and sums written alongside other works in the margins. Taking instructional texts, copybooks, and popular serials as its focus, this paper explores the characteristics of popular numeracy in early modern Britain. This paper was first delivered at the conference 'Numeracy: historical, philosophical, and educational perspectives' at St Anne's College, Oxford, in December 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides updates concerning the field of mathematics as of March 2007. The British National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists has received a grant for a project on the archives of British physicists and mathematicians. A team of mathematicians and computer scientists in the U.S. has developed a pedagogical technique for teaching material in discrete mathematics. A quantity of primary and secondary materials for the history of mathematics is available online.

In a deliberately provocative first part to this paper, I argue that nineteenth-century British mathematicians had an unduly high opinion of themselves and a striking lack of appreciation for contemporary continental developments. I argue that this failure was rooted in the institutions that supported mathematics, and was only remedied towards the end of the century. In the more sober second half of the paper I ask if historians of mathematics have subscribed to this overestimate, and explore some related questions, among them what are historians doing when they write history: telling it as it was, or righting or defending the record? Historians of mathematics also need to consider British priorities for research in the nineteenth century, and a comparison with other minor players (such as Japan, Portugal, or Poland) might be illuminating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Victorian era was characterized by the dominance of Great Britain both militarily and economically, the achievements of the British in mathematics were considerably less spectacular. Nevertheless, significant contributions were made by British mathematicians, several of whose names are still well known today. This paper highlights the principal mathematical developments in Britain during this time, closing with some observations on the weaknesses and limitations of Victorian British mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to correct a widespread misconception about the work of Robert Leslie Ellis and John Venn, namely that it can be considered as the ‘British empiricist’ reaction against the traditional theory of probability. It is argued, instead, that there was no unified ‘British school’ of frequentism during the nineteenth century. Where Ellis arrived at frequentism from a metaphysical idealist transformation of probability theory’s mathematical calculations, Venn did so on the basis of an empiricist critique of its ‘inverse application’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Motivated by a manuscript find in the Macclesfield Collection held by Cambridge University Library, the role of mathematicians in the emerging life insurance industry in eighteenth-century England is examined. Two early life insurance societies are examined here in detail. In one, a prominent mathematician's arguments were ignored thus confirming the generally accepted view among historians of insurance that the role of mathematicians at this time was minor or non-existent. For the other case, the promoter of two insurance schemes used his mathematical knowledge to design the operation of his insurance plans thus showing that mathematical activity was at least not non-existent. The manuscript find still leaves the question of what the motivation and impact was of the major writers on life annuities during the first half of the eighteenth century. This is addressed by considering the major economic background of early eighteenth-century England—land and property. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on a conference held in Oxford, Great Britain on June 25, 2016 that focuses on the role of mathematics in science, history of mathematics during the Age of Enlightenment, and role of mathematics in architecture in the 18th century.

A personal narrative is presented in which the author talks about the British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM) meeting he attended, which was held at Birmingham and Midland Institute in Great Britain, and discusses lectures by mathematics scholars Adrian Rice, Robin Whitty, and Lisa Jardine.

The article discusses the highlights of meetings of the British Society for the History of Mathematics held in 2007. The meeting titled A Sesquicentenary Celebration of Karl Pearson (1857-1936) was organized by Eileen Magnello who was also the first speaker. The meeting titled BMS History of Mathematics Splinter Group consisted of five talks, varied in topic and approach.

The article discusses a meeting of the organization the Joint Mathematical Council of the UK (JMC) on November 5, 2013. According to the article, the meeting marked the 50th anniversary of the organization. The article states that the meeting was chaired by scholar Sir Peter Williams and that several presentations were made by scholars including professor Sir Bryan Thwaites, JMC Executive Sally Barton, and professor Margaret Brown.

In 1785, William Ludlam wrote a book entitled The rudiments of mathematics. After I purchased the 1790 edition of this text some years ago at an antiquarian bookstore in Connecticut, I became interested in learning more about him. Ludlam's name had appeared as a footnote in several histories of mathematics, but little else had been written about him. I began some research, simply out of curiosity. What emerged was a story of an interesting mathematician, scientist, inventor, and clergyman-and a man who often found himself in the middle of controversy and subject to personal attacks, whether deserved or not. This article is a biography of Ludlam, in which I have used his own words, as well as those of his adversaries, wherever possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This column reports on various conventions and meetings conducted by the British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM) in 2008. They include a commemorative conference for mathematician Robert Recorde and discussions on maritime mathematics, collaborative teaching practice and history of mathematics.

The article highlights several British Society for the History of Mathematics (BHSM) meetings. The British Mathematics Colloquium was held in York, England from March 25-28, 2008. The 50th British Applied Mathematics Colloquium was held at the University of Manchester from March 31-April 3, 2008. A meeting on the history of financial mathematics was held at Gresham College on April 25, 2008.

This article considers the role John Playfair (1748-1819) played in creating and popularizing the myth that mathematical development halted in Great Britain in the eighteenth century due to mathematicians' irrational attachment to a geometrical approach to the calculus. By the turn of the nineteenth century, Playfair had established his reputation as an energetic teacher, gifted expositor, and skilled natural philosopher. He served as joint professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh and as general secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, editing the Society's Transactions, while his written accomplishments included Elements of geometry (1795) and Illustrations of the Huttonian theory of the earth (1802). He then contributed his talents to the opinionated journal, Edinburgh Review, where his assessments of the contemporary state of mathematics reached a wide audience of intellectuals, gentlemen, and merchants, albeit anonymously. The article expands upon a section of a talk delivered to the Fourth Joint Meeting of the BSHM and CSHPM in Montreal, 27-29 July 2007 (see also Ackerberg-Hastings 2007). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical practitioners were largely responsible for the development and application of vital statistics in the mid-nineteenth century, whilst mathematicians established the discipline of mathematical statistics at the end of the nineteenth century in Victorian Britain. The ground-breaking work of such vital statisticians as T R Malthus, William Farr, Edwin Chadwick and Florence Nightingale are examined. Charles Darwin's emphasis of individual biological continuous variation, which played a pivotal role in the epistemic transition from vital to mathematical is assessed in the context of the innovative work of these mathematical statisticians: Francis Galton, W F R Weldon, and primarily Karl Pearson with contributions from Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, George Udny Yule and William Sealy Gosset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a project which was developed as part of the Gatsby Teacher Fellowship in Mathematics (http://www.gtf.org.uk), for the 2004–5 academic year. It also discusses some other web-based resources that teachers of mathematics in England and Wales, following the National Curriculum at Key Stages 3 and 4, can use to supplement their teaching of mathematics within a historical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neil Bibby made many substantial contributions to history of mathematics education in the UK and to the BSHM in particular. He and his mother each left generous legacies to the Society. His former colleague Bob Burn was invited to give a lecture in his memory to the History of Mathematics in Education (HIMED) meeting in Loughborough in March 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the meetings conducted by the British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM) in Great Britain in 2005. The conference titled Mathematical Textbooks: History, Production and Influence was held in Oxford, England in September. The Annual BSHM-Gresham College Lecture was conducted at Gresham College in November, while the BSHM Christmas meeting was held at Birkbeck College in London, England in December. The topics discussed at the meetings are cited.

The article describes meetings concerning the organization the British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM) including a "History of Computing in Three Parts" at Gresham College in London, England, on October 31, 2013, "A Chance Encounter': A talk by scholar Richard Simpson about 17th century mathematics" in Manchester, England, on November 12, 2013, and the BSHM Christmas meeting at the Birmingham and Midland Institute on December 7, 2013.

The article presents an update on issues related to meetings conducted by mathematical societies in Great Britain. The Worlds of Oronce Fine conference was conducted at Saint Andrews Department of Art History from May 12 to 14, 2006. The meeting conducted by the London Mathematical Society on June 16, 2006 focused on the life and legacy of mathematician Augustus de Morgan.