Background

Francis Maseres was born on December 15, 1731, in London, City of London, United Kingdom to the family of a physician Peter Abraham Maseres and Magdalene du Pratt du Clareau. The Maseres family (Masères) were French Protestants who had been forced to flee France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was fluent in French. He had a brother, named Peter.

Education

Francis Maseres attended the Reverend Richard Wooddeson's School in Kingston-upon-Thames before matriculating at Clare College, Cambridge, on 4 July 1748. Francis' brother Peter matriculated on the same day and both brothers graduated from Clare College Cambridge in 1752 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in classics and mathematics. Francis was ranked as fourth wrangler meaning that he was fourth out of the students awarded a first-class degree. Francis was awarded the first chancellor's classical medal which was presented to him by the Duke of Newcastle. He was awarded a Joseph Diggons scholarship in January 1752, awarded his Master of Arts in 1755, and elected to a fellowship on 24 September 1756 which he held until August 1759 when he resigned the fellowship when it still had a year to run.

In 1750 Maseres entered the Inner Temple meaning he was training to join the legal profession. He qualified in 1758.

Career

After spending a few years in the practice of law with little success, he was appointed attorney general for Quebec, in which post he served until 1769. His career in the new world was distinguished “by his loyalty during the American contest and his zeal for the interests of the province.” Upon his return to England, he was appointed cursitor baron of the Exchequer, an office which he held until his death at the age of ninety-three. During this period of his life, he was generally known as Baron Maseres. In addition, he was at different times deputy recorder of London and senior judge of the sheriff’s court.

Three aspects of Maseres’ career are noteworthy. The first is his interest in political matters, particularly in the affairs of Canada and the American colonies. Of a considerable number of essays along these lines from Maseres’ pen, the following are typical: “Considerations on the expediency of admitting Representatives from the American Colonies to the House of Commons” (1770); “Account of Proceedings of British and other Protestants of the Province of Quebec to establish a House of Assembly” (anonymously), (1775); “The Canadian Freeholder, a Dialogue shewing the Sentiments of the Bulk of the Freeholders on the late Quebeck Act” (1776-1779); “Select Tracts on Civil Wars in England, in the Reign of Charles I” (1815).

The second aspect of Maseres’ long career is the peculiar nature of his mathematical contributions, reflecting his complete lack of creative ability together with naive individualism. For a proper perspective, one must recall that Maseres’ works were written about a century and a half after Viète and Harriot had ushered in the period of “symbolic algebra.” While Viète had rejected negative roots of equations, certain immediate precursors of Maseres, notably Cotes, De Moivre, Taylor, and Maclaurin, had gone far beyond this stage, as had his contemporaries on the Continent: Lambert, Lagrange, and Laplace. Despite these advances, some quirk in the young Maseres compelled him to reject that part of algebra which was not arithmetic, probably because he could not understand it, although by his own confession others might comprehend it.

Perhaps the many publications with which he strove to bring mathematics to a much wider public were the most notable aspect of Maseres’ legacy. Some were original works; others were reprints of the works of distinguished mathematicians. His original books are characterized by extreme prolixity, occasioned by his rejection of algebra, and the consequent proliferation of particular cases. For example, in the Dissertation alluded to above, which is virtually a treatise on elementary algebra, the discussion of basic rules and the solution of quadratic and cubic equations occupy three hundred quarto pages.

Of the reprints that Maseres made at his own expense, the most significant is the Scriptores logarithmici (1791-1807), six volumes devoted to the subject of logarithms, including the works of Kepler, Napier, Snellius, and others, interspersed with original tracts on related subjects. Others, interspersed with original tracts on related subjects. Other republications include the following: Scriptores optici (1823), a reprint of the optical essays of James Gregory, Descartes, Schooten, Huygens, Halley, and Barrow; Jakob I Bernoulli’s tract on permutations and combinations; Colson’s translation of Agnesi’s Analytical Institutions: Hale’s Latin treatise on fluxions (1800); and several tracts on English history.

Achievements

• Francis Maseres managed to build a successful juridical career. His works in mathematics established his influence on the teaching of algebra in Britain for several decades. For his scientific achievements, he was elected a member of the Royal Society.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Dissertation On the Use of the Negative Sign in Algebra 1758
  • Elements of plane trigonometry: In which is introduced, a dissertation on the nature and use of logarithms 1760
  • Considerations on the Expediency of Procuring an Act of Parliament for the Settlement of the Province of Quebec 1766
  • Considerations on the Expediency of Admitting Representatives From the American Colonies Into the British House of Commons 1770
  • A Collection of Several Commissions, and Other Public Instruments, Proceeding from His Majesty's Royal Authority, and Other Papers, Relating to the State of the Province in Quebec in North America, Since the Conquest of it by the British Arms in 1760 1772
  • A Draught of an Act of Parliament for Tolerating the Roman Catholick Religion in the Province of Quebec, and for Encouraging the Protestant Religion Into the Said Province 1772
  • Draught of An Act of Parliament for Settling the Laws of the Province of Quebec 1772
  • A Proposal for Establishing Life-annuities in Parishes for the Benefit of the Industrious Poor 1772
  • Mémoire à la défense d'un plan: d'acte de Parlement pour l'établissement des loix de la province de Québec 1772
  • An Account of the Proceedings of the British, and other Protestant Inhabitants, of the Province of Quebeck, in North America, in Order to Obtain An House of Assembly in that Province 1775
  • Additional Papers Concerning the Province of Quebeck: Being An Appendix to the Book Entitled, "An Account of the Proceedings of the British and Other Protestant Inhabitants of the Province of Quebeck in North America in Order to Obtain a House of Assembly in that Province 1776
  • The Canadian Freeholder: In Two Dialogues Between an Englishman and a Frenchman, Settled in Canada: Volume 1 1777
  • The Canadian Freeholder: In Two Dialogues Between an Englishman and a Frenchman, Settled in Canada: Volume 2 1778
  • The Canadian Freeholder: In Two Dialogues Between an Englishman and a Frenchman, Settled in Canada: Volume 3 1779
  • The Principles of the Doctrine of Life-Annuities 1783
  • Questions, sur Lesquelles On Souhaite de Sçavoir les Réponses de Monsieur Adhémar, Et de Monsieur de Lisle, Et d'Autres Habitants de la Province de Québec 1784
  • A Review of the Government and Grievances of the Province of Quebec, Since the Conquest of It by the British Arms. to Which Is Added, an Appendix, Containing Extracts from Authentic Papers 1788
  • Answer to an Introduction to the Observations Made by the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas 1788
  • The Doctrine of Permutations and Combinations 1795
  • Tracts on the Resolution of Affected Algebräick Equations by Dr. Halley's, Mr. Raphson's, and Sir Isaac Newton's, Methods of Approximation 1795
  • Occasional Essays On Various Subjects: Chiefly Political And Historical 1809
  • Select Tracts Relating to the Civil Wars in England: In the Reign of King Charles the First 1815
  • The Maseres Letters, 1766-1768 1919

Religion

Maseres was a zealous protestant and a warm advocate for reforms in the church of England.

Politics

Maseres was a Whig but he was not in favour of a wide scheme of electoral reform. He involved himself in the movement for a constitutional reform of Quebec which resumed at full speed with the end of the American War of Independence in 1783, and which was concluded with the adoption of the Constitutional Act of 1791 by the British Parliament. He espoused the cause of Pierre du Calvet who intended to bring governor Frederick Haldimand before the courts for violating the British constitution.

Views

Maseres' prejudice against “negative and impossible quantities” affected much of his later work. Maseres, unfortunately, influenced the teaching of algebra for several decades, as may be seen from textbooks of T. Manning (1796); N. Vilant (1798); and W. Ludlam (1809).

Membership

• 

  Royal Society , United Kingdom

Personality

Presumably, a number of authors were indebted to Maseres for financial assistance of this sort. There can be little doubt of his sincerity and generosity, even if somewhat misplaced. It was his delight to entertain his friends in his rooms in London or his country house at Reigate, and his conversation abounded in anecdote and information, particularly in the incidents of English history from 1640 to his own date. He kept up his taste for the classics. He knew Homer by heart, and Horace was at his fingers' ends. Lucan was his favourite next to Homer in ancient literature; among English writers, he felt great admiration for Milton and was thoroughly conversant with the works of Hobbes. He was a good chess player.

Interests

• chess

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Thomas Hobbes

• Writers

  Homer, Lucan, Horace, John Milton

Connections

Francis Maseres was never married and had no children.

Father:

Peter Abraham Maseres

Mother:

Magdalene du Pratt du Clareau

teacher:

Richard Wooddeson

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography: Volumes 9 & 10
  1980