Background
Milner was born on 11 January 1750 in Mabgate, Leeds. He began his education at a grammar school in Leeds in 1756, but this ended in 1760 with the death of his father.
mathematician university professor
Milner was born on 11 January 1750 in Mabgate, Leeds. He began his education at a grammar school in Leeds in 1756, but this ended in 1760 with the death of his father.
He was apprenticed as a weaver, reading the classics when time permitted, until his elder brother, Joseph Milner, provided him with an opportunity. He graduated Bachelor as senior wrangler in 1774, winning the Smith"s first prize.
He was instrumental in the 1785 religious conversion of William Wilberforce and helped him through many trials and was a great supporter of the abolitionists" campaign against the slave trade, steeling Wilberforce with his assurance before the 1789 Parliamentary debate:
If you carry this point in your whole life, that life will be better spent than in being prime minister of many years. He was also a natural philosopher and the Dean of Carlisle. Joseph was offered the mastership at Hull"s grammar school and invited Isaac to become the institution"s usher.
Shortly after he took his bachelor"s degree in 1774 he was ordained as deacon.
In 1776 Queens" offered him a fellowship. In the following year he became a priest and college tutor.
And in 1778 he was presented with the rectory of Street Botolph. During these years his career as a natural philosopher began to take official
In 1776 Nevil Maskelyne hired him as a computer for the board of longitude, and two of his mathematical papers were presented to the Royal Society, of which he was elected fellow in 1780.
In these papers Milner displayed three things: proficiency in mathematics, suspicion of French philosophy, and adherence to English Newtonian mechanics. In 1782 the Jacksonian professorship of natural philosophy was established and the syndicate selected Milner as the inaugural professor, a position he retained until 1792. Besides lecturing, Milner also developed an important process to fabricate nitrous acid, a key ingredient in the production of gunpowder.
His paper describing this process was published in the Royal Society"s Philosophical Transactions in 1789 alongside an article of Joseph Priestley"s, and the two corresponded on the subject.
In later years Milner transferred his elaborate collection of chemical apparatus into the president"s lodge at Queens" and performed experiments with East. Doctorate. Clarke, William Whewell, and the Wollaston brothers. He also collaborated with Humphry Davy and Joseph Banks in an attempt to cure gout.
Over the span of his forty-five-year career, Milner"s scientific sentiments came to reflect his religious sentiments strongly. Although he never parted from the Anglican fold, he came to embrace the central evangelical doctrines of the late eighteenth century.
Milner, with Charles Simeon, was largely responsible for the evangelical revival at Cambridge.
Indeed, through the years of his tenure at Queens" he dramatically changed the entire complexion of the college. He was also responsible for the conversion of William Wilberforce, which occurred during their long continental tour of 1784-1785. After his death Milner was remembered for his astonishing intellect, his peculiar lifestyle, his tremendous physical bulk and his part in the rise in evangelicalism.
Thomas De Quincey, in his preface to the Confessions, deemed Milner an "eloquent and benevolent" opium user.
Royal Society.
