Born Ramsey, Huntingdonshire, England, 1711
Died Cambridge, England, 10 March 1775
Richard Dunthorne was an observer, mathematical astronomer, and surveyor. Dunthorne’s father was a gardener who sent his son to the free grammar school at Ramsey. Here he was noticed by Roger Long, master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, who employed Richard as a footboy in return for a mathematical education.
Dunthorne taught at a Cambridge University preparatory school in Coggeshall, Essex, before returning to Cambridge in the 1750s as butler and astronomical observer to Pembroke Hall. He held the post for the rest of his life. He was also scientific assistant to Long until Long’s death in 1770. In addition, Dunthorne was superintendent of the Bedford Level Corporation, for which he conducted a survey of the fens and was responsible for lock building and drainage work. From 1765 to his death, Dunthorne was a comparer for the Nautical Almanac.
Despite never formally graduating from Cambridge University or...
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Selected References
Clerke, Agnes M. and rev. by Anita McConnell (2004). “Dunthorne, Richard.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Vol. 17, pp. 365–366. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Taylor, E. G. R. (1966). The Mathematical Practitioners of Hanoverian England, 1714–1840. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Institute of Navigation.
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Croarken, M. (2014). Dunthorne, Richard. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_391
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